Linguist K. David Harrison discusses the importance of language diversity and language revitalization in the face of globalization. He warns against the false choice of globalization that says people must give up their languages.

You can watch it below; The video was orignally posted  at DotSub.com – w website where you can create subtitles for any video in your own language.

There are two language conferences coming up in October, both held in Minneapolis. The CARLA (Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition) Immersion conference will be held Oct. 16-18 with school tours and workshops on the 15th. This year the CARLA conference will have a conference stream specifically for indigenous languages, and will feature speakers from Maori, Hawai’ian and Ojibwe communities.

CARLA Immersion Conference website

The 40th Algonquian conference will be held at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities campus on Oct. 24-26. This is an international meeting for researchers working in the area of Algonquian studies — which includes the Ojibwe language. While the conference website doesn’t yet have the schedule posted, organizer John Nichols showed me a preliminary line up of topics, and they will include:

• Problems and strategies in the analysis, redaction and presentation of native texts,
• Currents in contemporary Ojibwe art, and
• Ojibwe language teaching, curriculum development and research

among others.

This last theme on Ojibwe language teaching, curriculum development and research will be of interest to those working in the language revitalization field. Presenters in this theme include: Keller Paap (Waadookodaading Immersion School), Henry Flocken (Bemidji State U), Adrian Liberty (Niigaane Immersion School), Margaret Noori (University of Michigan), and J. Randolph Valentine (U of WI - Madison).

40th Algonquian Conference website

The Wisconsin State Journal reported yesterday that legislators are considering a move to revive funding for American Indian language development, which ended in 2003. The proposal by Libby Burmaster, state school superintendent, would set aside a yearly amount of $260,000 to be given out in grants of $10,000-$50,000 for language materials development or hiring teachers. The funds would come from the revenue paid to the state by tribes through tribal gaming revenues.

Materials development continues to be an issue for immersion schools and classroom native language programs throughout Indian Country. In Minnesota, a task-force of educators are meeting with the state to dicuss material development needs, and the possibility of a textbook.

Brush up your language skills. There’s a 7-Day Ojibwe Language Immersion Camp at Lac Seul First Nation, 30 kms north of Sioux Lookout, Ontario, August 1st – August 8th, 2008.  Held in an outdoor setting at Lac Seul by the lake.  The teachers will be Lola Goodwin and Pat Ningewance Nadeau (author of Talking Gookom’s Language). Three Lac Seul Elders will also be on site every day.

The purpose of the course is to have students hold simple Ojibwe dialogues with each other and with elders, and to follow ordinary conversations amongst fluent speakers. Fluent fishing guides will take students out for fishing excursions for pickerel and northern pike  as well as boat trips to the main community and beautiful surrounding area.

SCHEDULE FOR THE WEEK

• Aug. 1st  Friday  Day of Arrival and Orientation Period. Survival phrases introduced.
• Aug. 2nd  Saturday  Reviiew of phrases. Weather, Getting to know each other. Kinship.
• Aug. 3rd   Sunday  Getting to know others. Excursion. Commands. At Home. Animals.
• Aug. 4th   Monday  In the Workplace. Occupations, Feelings. Senses. Appearances.
• Aug. 5th   Tuesday  Going to town, store, office, restaurant.  Food. Table talk. Cooking.
• Aug. 6th   Wednesday  Visiting in a hospital. Being at a Conference. Placenames.
• Aug. 7th  Thursday  Camping, Geography. Preparing fish and other natural food.
• Aug. 8th    Friday  Packing up, saying goodbye. Self-assessment. Debriefing in English.

Tuition fee: $350.00 per person covers meals, and materials for 7days. Travel and camping gear are your responsibiility. Please advise us on dietary restrictions and whether you will need a ride from Sioux Lookout and the Kejick Bay landing.

For information, email books@patningewance.ca or p_nadeau@canada.com. Call (204) 774-8007. Fax (204) 489-3869. Also inquire at Frenchman’s Head (Lac Seul First Nation): (807) 582-3499.

Miigwech Teresa Reed for passing this information on to us.

I wanted to add to Monique’s post about Brendan Fairbanks blog and myspace page. Brendan teaches the third-year Ojibwe language classes at the University of MN, Twin Cities campus, and also runs a weekly language table in Minneapolis. He’s an incredibly observant person when listening to elders, often picking up on subtle differences in speech that many people miss.

His blog posts contain many of his insightful observations of the nuances of Ojibwe speech. I also enjoy the pragmatic aspect of his posts which lend themselves to use in language practice drills. He’s very good at breaking the various parts of speech down into digestible chunks and gives good examples of everyday usage.

We encourage you to check the posts out and use them in your everyday practice of Ojibwemowin.

Awanigaabaw (Brendan Fairbanks) has started a new Ojibwemowin blog on MySpace. He has posted reviews of topics/drills covered at the language table he runs in St. Paul. Check it out for yourself! Don’t worry you don’t have to have a MySpace page to view his blog.

When I flipped on the radio Sunday morning it took a few moments to realize the chuckle I heard belonged to David Treuer and not to some commonly heard radio host.

As he was recently interviewed on Speaking of Faith with Krista Tippett, what David had to say might be well known to the language revitalization faithful. He talked much about our language being intrinsic and absolute to our ceremonies. As familiar as it all may be it’s still a great deal of fun to recognize voices on the radio – it feels a little bit famous.

But what really struck me is how lucky we are as Ojibwe people. And that might be a strange thought, how could we, as Ojibwe people with abundant culture and language loss be lucky- and as I write it now it does seem a bit perverse, but I still hold to it. We have our language. We have our ceremonies and we have our faith. We have to work at it for sure. We have lost a lot, but as an elder has reminded me, we focus a lot on the past, on what we have lost. But what we have is in the future, now and in the future, that’s where we live.

Additionally captured in this radio show is something that radio can do that print media simply cannot, it brings the voices of our kids into our homes from our friends at Nigaane and Waadookodaading. Those voices shine a light on some of our first steps we are taking into the future.

Check it out: Sustaining Language, Sustaining Meaning — an Ojibwe Story

Minnesota is celebrating 150 years of statehood. Some Minnesotans that is; for many American Indians, the sesquicentennial is a painful reminder of language loss in the last 150 years due to European immigration and federal policies of assimilation, alottment and relocation.

In an MPR article today, Red Laker Roger DesJarlait speaks about how learning the Ojibwe language is helping in the healing process: “First the individual heals, and then you heal the family and then you heal the community.”

***

Interestingly enough, a different proposal for Minnesota statehood was advocated for just 16 years before Minnesota statehood in 1858. This proposal by Wisconsin Governor Doty would have made Minnesota an all-Indian state where white settlement was forbidden. The treaty wasn’t altruistic, but promoted as way to assimilate American Indians and provide a place for other states to send their unwanted Indians. Listen to the MPR interview with a state historian on the Doty Treaty.

Ojibwe culture, language and identity are all tied up together in a complicated knot. It is difficult as you follow the thread of one, to disentangle it from the other two; perhaps impossible, as they are all part of the same thread that runs through one’s life. What left of Ojibwe culture without the language, Ojibwemowin?

“Our cultures and our languages — as unique, identifiable and
particular entities — are linked to our sovereignty. If we allow our
own wishful thinking and complacency to finish what George Armstrong
Custer began, we will lose what we’ve managed to retain: our languages,
land, laws, institutions, ceremonies and, finally, ourselves. And to
claim that Indian cultures can continue without Indian languages only
hastens our end, even if it makes us feel better about ourselves.” writes Ojibwe author David Treuer in a recent Washington Post article (If They’re Lost, Who Are We?).

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines culture as “the characteristic features of everyday existence (as diversions or a way of life) shared by people in a place or time.” Dictionary.com calls it “the sum total of ways of living built up by a group of human beings and transmitted from one generation to another.”

If Ojibwemowin ceases to become a feature of everyday existence, if the knowledge, world view and beliefs of generations which are contained within the very words of the language are lost, what then is left to distinguish Ojibwe culture from Ojibwe heritage or ethnicity? It’s a complicated and sobering question.

His brother Anton Treuer read a portion of a story from the book Living our Language during an NPR interview in April (Letter Men: Brothers Fight for Ojibwe Language). The story entitled, “Gaawiin gii-wanitoosiimin gidinwewewinaan” by Joe Auginaush speaks of how it is not the people who are losing the language, but rather the language that is losing the people.

In listening to him read that story, I saw in my mind a thread running through the twisted tangle of life, and the challenge to grab that thread and follow it back to the language, lest we become lost.

The Canadian government officially apoligized to First Nations, Inuit and Metis peoples this week for a century of abuse endured at boarding schools. From the 1870s through the 1990s, an estimated 150,000 Native children were forcibly removed from their homes and communities, and taken to government funded residential schools whos purpose was to eradicate Native culture and language.

The apology is being accompanied with a Truth and Reconciliation council and compensation for the approximately 80,000 survivors still living.

• Harper ’sorry’ for native residential schools, Tronoto Star
• Natives welcome PM’s apology: Government sorry for abuses at country’s residential schools, Barrie Examiner
• Saying sorry: PM’s apology heals old wounds, Windsor Star

The sad tale of abuse and neglect suffered in Canada parallels what happened to Native children in the United States during the same time frame. In fact, the Canadian boarding schools were modeled on the U.S. system of residential schools for American Indians. The abusive treatment of children in residential schools has been responsible for the loss of indigenous languages, particularly in the U.S. where they were compounded by federal allotment and relocation policies. Sadly, an apology from the United States government seems unlikely.

Many were taught to feel shame for speaking their language, and refused to teach their children the language as a way to protect them from the same pain.

As the indigenous language revitalization movement gains momentum, one of the challenges for many in learning their language is healing the internal pain left from internalizing the oppression of generations. There are many varied strategies for language acquisition, and perhaps this healing can be thought of as an emotional strategy. Healing the past and learning language anew together can become a way to reclaim idenitity as Indian people and to take back the power and strength of Indian people that was once denied.