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.

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

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 LaCrosse Tribune in Wis. just published a series about indigenous language revitalization.

• Tribes work to reverse corrosive effects of boarding schools
• Tribes on their own when it comes to saving languages
• Nearly lost, Indian languages struggling to make comeback
• ‘Through love, we lost the language’
• Languages offer window into human mind

One of the challenges is funding for immersion schools. Most schools are funded through a combination of federal and private grants, tribal funding and sometimes state funding. In the second article, “Tribes on their own…”, Justin Stein writes:

“Several federal agencies together provided roughly $850,000 in
grant money this year to native groups in the state to help fund a
tribal immersion school, train tribal language teachers and digitally
record their languages. That sum, though significant, is much less than
the money the government once spent on Indian boarding schools that
sought to kill off those languages.

The state received
$168.5 million in payments from tribal gambling casinos over the two
most recent years, but spends none of that on tribal language programs.
In contrast, not counting federal money, the state is expected to spend
$2.6 million this year to protect threatened wildlife such as the
trumpeter swan and the Karner blue butterfly.”

The third article in the series, “Nearly lost, Indian languages struggling to make a comeback,” our fellow cohort member Lisa Clemens was quoted as a teacher at Waadookodaading Ojibwe immersion school. Kudos to you Lisa for all the hard work you do.