Wenesh Waa Oshkii-Bmaadizijig Noondamowaad? What Will The Young Children Hear?
This essay discusses the practical realities of creating a bi-lingual home, specifically with an endangered language. It begins with a brief introduction to Anishinaabemowin and then describes language activism at several levels—from informal community instruction to full-credit post-secondary cours...
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| Format: | Text |
| Language: | English |
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| Online Access: | http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.520.6338 http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~jar/ILR/ILR-2.pdf |
| Summary: | This essay discusses the practical realities of creating a bi-lingual home, specifically with an endangered language. It begins with a brief introduction to Anishinaabemowin and then describes language activism at several levels—from informal community instruction to full-credit post-secondary courses. Organized around the steps taken to produce fluency and transfer a full aesthetic and cultural understanding of the language, this essay attempts to convey the need for curriculum as well as community support for language revitalization. In our house, with each passing exchange of meaning, we take, or we miss, an opportunity to use an indigenous language. We wake up, give kisses, tell jokes, tease one another, stop arguments or wipe tears; and with each act we make a choice to use English, or Anishinaabemowin. My goal is for all of us to make those choices un-self-consciously, to make them instinctive dreamtime choices that echo into the day. If we can honor the language and use it regularly, then like dreams remembered, it will guide and define us in ways that connect us to our home, our ancestors and to one another. This short essay offers some of what I have learned while struggling to keep a language alive and in use in a busy modern household. Sometimes it is like waging war on English and you must have strong defenses, offensive strategies and an endless supply of patience and assistance. At other times it is the most natural and easy form of play, a blanket of comfort that shelters a small community from the larger, sometimes harsher, landscape. I will be honest, we don’t yet have days where everyone speaks Anishinaabemowin all the time, and perhaps we never will. But we do try and I think that is what matters. We make space and give children a foundation for bi-lingual learning in the place where it matters the most, the home. First, let me describe the landscape. Anishinaabemowin is a language shared by people living within, or connected to, over 220 separate sovereign nations that surround the Great ... |
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