Ojibwemowin – Turtle Talk

Anishinaabemowin at Suttons Bay Public Schools

January 25, 2011January 25, 2011Kate Fort2 Comments

From Interlochen Public Radio. You can listen to the report here:

By Linda Stephan

Learning a second language is not always about learning foreign language. It can also be about preserving what’s been right here for generations, language at risk of being lost.

In addition to offerings, such as French or Spanish, more northern Michigan public schools and colleges are offering students the chance to learn Anishinaabemowin, or Ojibwa.

Suttons Bay Public Schools is a regional leader in offering native languages for second-language credit. The program is now three years old. In tough budget times, Suttons Bay had held tight to its native language offerings.

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Ojibwe Language Preservation Documentary Available Online

January 4, 2011January 4, 2011Kate Fort2 Comments

Available from Twin Cities Public Television here. The entire show is available and about an hour long.

h/t E.P.

Here’s the description:

About First Speakers: Restoring the Ojibwe Language

As recent as World War II, the Ojibwe language (referred to as ojibwemowin in Ojibwe) was the language of everyday life for the Anishinaabe and historically the language of the Great Lakes fur trade. Now this indigenous language from where place names like Biwabik, Sheboygan and Nemadji State Forest received their names is endangered.

The loss of land and political autonomy, combined with the damaging effects of U.S. government policies aimed at assimilating Native Americans through government run boarding schools, have led to the steep decline in the use of the language. Anton Treuer, historian, author and professor of Ojibwe at Bemidji State University and featured in First Speakers: Restoring the Ojibwe Language, estimates there are fewer than one thousand fluent Ojibwe speakers left in the United States, mostly older and concentrated in small pockets in northern Minnesota with fewer than one hundred speakers in Wisconsin, Michigan and North Dakota combined.

Treuer is a part of a new generation of Ojibwe scholars and educators who are now racing against time to save the language and the well-being of their communities. Narrated by acclaimed Ojibwe writer, Louise Erdrich, First Speakers tells their contemporary and inspirational story. Working with the remaining fluent Ojibwe speaking elders, the hope is to pass the language on to the next generation. As told through Ojibwe elders, scholars, writers, historians and teachers, this tpt original production reveals some of the current strategies and challenges that are involved in trying to carry forward the language.

First Speakers takes viewers inside two Ojibwe immersion schools: Niigaane Ojibwemowin Immersion School on the Leech Lake Reservation near Bena, Minnesota and the Waadookodaading Ojibwe Language Immersion Charter School on the Lac Courte Oreilles Reservation near Hayward, Wisconsin. In both programs, students are taught their academic content from music to math entirely in the Ojibwe language and within the values and traditional practices of the Ojibwe culture. Unique to the schools is the collaboration between fluent speaking elders and the teachers who have learned Ojibwe as their second language.

First Speakers: Restoring the Ojibwe Language provides a window into their innovative and intergenerational learning experience and the language they are determined to save.

ICT Article on Indian Language Textbooks

August 19, 2008Matthew L.M. Fletcher

From ICT:

SANTA FE, N.M. – Long-talked-about efforts to infuse Native culture and language learning in the public education system have resulted in action in New Mexico.

A textbook co-authored by Evangeline Parsons Yazzie, a Navajo professor at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, has been selected by the state’s education department as a high-quality resource that will soon be made available to all school districts in the state.

State officials believe that New Mexico is the first state to adopt a Navajo textbook for use in the American public education system.

So far, officials from 10 districts have already signed on to have teachers in their systems use the book and its companion teaching guide. BIA schools are also eligible to review the text and decide whether to use it starting in the 2009-10 school year.

”It’s just wonderful that an Indian language is being honored in this way,” Yazzie said. ”It’s so important that American Indians learn about their people, their language and their culture from their own people, rather than just reading about it in a textbook that’s written by a non-Indian.”

Yazzie’s book, ”Dine’ Bizaad Binahoo’ahh,” or ”Rediscovering the Navajo Language,” is filled with cultural and language lesson plans that are suitable for all ages of students, according to the author. It is illustrated with many historical and contemporary pictures of people who have lived on the Navajo reservation. It’s also accompanied by a CD with the voices of Yazzie and her brother, Berlyn Yazzie, a former educator on the Navajo Nation.

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Helen Roy in Anishinaabemowin

November 14, 2007Matthew L.M. Fletcher

From the Lansing State Journal:

Helen Roy MP3

MSU professor Helen Roy speaks in Ojibwe. Below is an Ojibwe/English translation:

Maanda zhigiizhiwewin nga-ke-dibaadadaan
(I’ll talk about the language for a bit)

E-bi-kwa-temigag gwa maanda aki, anishnaabeg gii-bi-anishnaabemowag.
(Ever since the world has been here, Indians spoke their language.)

Kina gwa kidowinan nango e-noondaagaadegin pane gii-bi-nakaazam.
(All the words you hear today were spoken.)

Aanind kidowag zhaazhi niibna kii-bi-maajii-anaajitoonaa maanda e-zhigiizhiweying.
(Some say that a lot of words have already been lost in the way that we speak.)

Aanind gwa eta maanda ndaa-debwetaan.
(I believe only a part of this.)

Enh, aanind gaawiin geyaabi gda-nakaazasiinaanin kidowinan zaam gaawiin geyaabi naasaab izhi-anankiisiim gaa-zhi-zhichigeng kwa gegoo kchi-mewizha.
(Yes, some words we don’t use anymore because we don’t do things like they used to be done long time ago.)

Gaawiin geyaabi gwaya memkaach naadisiin nibiish ndawabaaning – mii gwa eta biimibijiged biindig miidash nibiish bi-zaagijiwang.
(We don’t have to get water from a well anymore, all people have to do is do
a little turn inside the house and water comes pouring out [faucet, in other
words].)

Gaawiin geyaabi gwaya ‘giziibiigsaganan’ da-nakaazasiinan zaam kina
gwaya e-waasimowinikaadeg teni endaad wii-giziibiiganiged.
(No one uses the wash board anymore because everyone has the electrical [washing machine] in their homes for washing clothes.)

Miidash nindan kidowinan e-dibaadadamaanh gaawiin geyaabi e-kidosing, miidash nindan kidowinan gaawiin ge-ni-aanken’nigaadesinogin.
(So these are the words I speak about that are not spoken anymore and these are the words that won’t be passed on.)

Giishpin dash shki’ntam-zhigiizhiwewin e-ayaanzig kinoomaaged, gaawiin maaba e-kinoomaagaazod da-kikendasiinan kina kidowinan anishnaabeg gaa-bi-zhi-nakaazawaad kwa.
(If a person that doesn’t have the first language, teaches, the student won’t learn all the words that were spoken.)

Miinwaa aabdeg nindan dnawan kidowinan daa-kinoomaagem mooshkin maaba e-kinoomaagaazod wii-kikendang maanda zhigiizhiwewin.
(All these types of words should be taught in full so the one being taught will know the language [in full])

Maanda dash nango gda-zhi-ginoonin, kiin e-kinoomaazoyin, pane wii-aabadendaman weweni wii-nsostaman maanda anishnaabemowin miinwaa pane ji-g’gwejimad e-anishnaabemod wii-kinoo’amaag.
(So I say this to you, the learner, to always be determined to always try to understand the language and to always ask the speaker to teach you.)

Gaawiin ka-giisaadendasii ngoding shkweyaang naabiyin waabamadwaa g’niijaansag anishnaabemowaad miinwaa niigaan wiinwaa naabiwaad
wii-gwekwendaagwag anishnaabemowin ji-ni-aanken’nigaadeg, ni-kinoomawaawaad niijaansiwaan gewiinwaa.
(You won’t regret it when one day you’ll look back to see your children
speaking the language as they look ahead to assure that the language is passed on, as they teach their own children.)

Esanaa da-nishin pii zhiwebag wi.
(That will be so great when that happens.)

Pii kina anishnaabeg anishnaabemowaad.
(When all the Indians speak the language.)

Pii dibi’iidig gwa e-izhaang, da-noondaagaade anishnaabemowin miinwaa da-zhiwebad g’gitiziinaanig gaa-zhi-ndawendamawaad.
(When everywhere you go, the Indian language will be heard and what our
elders wanted will have been executed.)