A Bemidji professor is on a quest to keep the Ojibwe language alive(startribune.com)
startribune.com
A Bemidji professor is on a quest to keep the Ojibwe language alive
https://www.startribune.com/a-bemidji-professor-is-on-quest-to-keep-the-ojibwe-language-alive/569281272/
8 comments
Ojibwe is better described as a language continuum consisting of multiple languages. The larger the geographical distance between native speakers, the less likely their spoken form will be mutually intelligible. Like the Romance languages. Portuguese and Spanish are pretty close, and while they are much different from Romansh and Romanian speakers might be able to pick out words from each others' speech. So you probably learned moon from another variation of Ojibwe than the dictionary.
> 3) Anton Treuer (the subject of the article) teaches at Bemidji State, while his brother David teaches at USC.
I was desperately hoping you were going to tell us about Dave from Bemidji [0].
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxrM-lwQ5so
I was desperately hoping you were going to tell us about Dave from Bemidji [0].
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxrM-lwQ5so
Crazy, WOJB was also one of my home radio stations (although being close to Ashland we got others as well). My dad DJd occasionally on WOJB when I was really little.
My stepmom was a program director too! I still tune in sometimes.
Yeah, James Vukelich does Ojibwe Word of the Day too I think.
WOJB is available to stream online now on their website and through TuneIn.
Great programming.
WOJB is available to stream online now on their website and through TuneIn.
Great programming.
The part of Northern Ontario where I grew up is part of the Ojibwe nation.
The most impressive thing about the nation to me is how inhospitable the region is. The winter where I'm from typically lasts about 8 months, it snowed a few days ago. The area wasn't really permanently inhabited by white people until well after industrialization.
I couldn't imagine living there without shipping or heating infrastructure.
It's unfortunate that we've lost so much of the history and traditions that enabled the Ojibwe to thrive there. Public school definitely didn't help, we learned absolutely nothing about their culture despite maybe a quarter of my class being native kids.
The most impressive thing about the nation to me is how inhospitable the region is. The winter where I'm from typically lasts about 8 months, it snowed a few days ago. The area wasn't really permanently inhabited by white people until well after industrialization.
I couldn't imagine living there without shipping or heating infrastructure.
It's unfortunate that we've lost so much of the history and traditions that enabled the Ojibwe to thrive there. Public school definitely didn't help, we learned absolutely nothing about their culture despite maybe a quarter of my class being native kids.
> Public school definitely didn't help, we learned absolutely nothing about their culture despite maybe a quarter of my class being native kids.
The one thing that always grated me when learning history in school is how utterly Eurocentric it was. Early anthropology was focused on explaining how "we" (principally Victorian Britain) became so great, and looked at the world through a lens of a checklist of how evolved they were--and people who couldn't smelt bronze were not seen as far advanced, since that's one of the first items in the list. While this view has been thoroughly discredited within the field of anthropology itself, it still lives on in popular writings and (sadly) our history textbooks.
Which is a shame, because the more you study pre-Columbian Americas, the more amazing you find it is. There's plenty to challenge your preconceived notions of history.
The one thing that always grated me when learning history in school is how utterly Eurocentric it was. Early anthropology was focused on explaining how "we" (principally Victorian Britain) became so great, and looked at the world through a lens of a checklist of how evolved they were--and people who couldn't smelt bronze were not seen as far advanced, since that's one of the first items in the list. While this view has been thoroughly discredited within the field of anthropology itself, it still lives on in popular writings and (sadly) our history textbooks.
Which is a shame, because the more you study pre-Columbian Americas, the more amazing you find it is. There's plenty to challenge your preconceived notions of history.
Thunder Bay? I'm from New Liskeard.
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Is there any evidence of this common claim that obscure languages "may contain some of the most critical solutions to the problems we face as humans"? What kind of problems is he talking about there? Has it ever happened before?
So what that a monkey is a "lice hunter"? In English, an anteater is an anteater and a wood splitter is a wood splitter. It's not a very special way of naming things. Maybe this language has no value to anyone except its own users, but they already speak it, so no effort is needed.
These activists always have a dark intention in their ideas that they want some poor indigenous people to be burdened with the work of learning and using a dying language. If young Ojibwe people are choosing not to use it, then maybe it's because they don't want or need it. I also didn't learn much Morse code as a kid despite older people wanting me to. Turns out it's no longer as useful as it was back in their day.
"Language, Treuer says, defines nations, connects generations and allows a culture to express its perspective on the world." Yes, and English does that job much better because you can actually communicate with the world and multiple generations. Different cultures do alter it with local slang or styles of speech and it's still intelligible while also defining their identity.
So what that a monkey is a "lice hunter"? In English, an anteater is an anteater and a wood splitter is a wood splitter. It's not a very special way of naming things. Maybe this language has no value to anyone except its own users, but they already speak it, so no effort is needed.
These activists always have a dark intention in their ideas that they want some poor indigenous people to be burdened with the work of learning and using a dying language. If young Ojibwe people are choosing not to use it, then maybe it's because they don't want or need it. I also didn't learn much Morse code as a kid despite older people wanting me to. Turns out it's no longer as useful as it was back in their day.
"Language, Treuer says, defines nations, connects generations and allows a culture to express its perspective on the world." Yes, and English does that job much better because you can actually communicate with the world and multiple generations. Different cultures do alter it with local slang or styles of speech and it's still intelligible while also defining their identity.
>These activists always have a dark intention in their ideas that they want some poor indigenous people to be burdened with the work of learning and using a dying language.
Learning multiple languages has been shown to provide many benefits to a child's wellbeing, though I don't see anyone forcing anybody to learn or use the language.
>If young Ojibwe people are choosing not to use it, then maybe it's because they don't want or need it.
Kids stopped using it because they are shipped to residential schools that used to punished use of their nativity language. There was no "choice" offered.
Learning multiple languages has been shown to provide many benefits to a child's wellbeing, though I don't see anyone forcing anybody to learn or use the language.
>If young Ojibwe people are choosing not to use it, then maybe it's because they don't want or need it.
Kids stopped using it because they are shipped to residential schools that used to punished use of their nativity language. There was no "choice" offered.
The first point does seem to be a bit of a thing in the direction of noble savage/naturalistic fallacy, in the way that appeals to stop Amazon deforestation on the basis of hidden uncovered local plants might prove to be miracle drugs that will safe humanity are overselling wonders previously unharmed by the modern world.
That said, the preservation of endangered languages is definitely in of itself a valuable and noble pursuit of knowledge. It preserves our understanding of the past, at the very least. And for something more groundbreaking, there is the whole matter of the Pirahã:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8772388
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=740687
That said, the preservation of endangered languages is definitely in of itself a valuable and noble pursuit of knowledge. It preserves our understanding of the past, at the very least. And for something more groundbreaking, there is the whole matter of the Pirahã:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8772388
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=740687
>Yes, and English does that job much better because you can actually communicate with the world and multiple generations.
That's a misunderstanding of Treuer's point. English is able to define English nations and express the English cultural perspective. He's not arguing that language, generally, is a tool for communication - he's saying that specific languages each yield their own specific identities.
To address the point more generally - languages do, for most speakers, have an influence on thought. People acknowledge that effect to varying degrees, from "you can't think what you can't express" to "language is intertwined with culture and culture differentiates thought" (i.e. not quite Sapir-Worf).
As an anecdotal argument - monolingual speakers often expect translation to be one-to-one, bar idioms. The fact is languages differ in nuance for different kinds of terms, to the point where a mapping might be one-to-many, many-to-one, or completely absent - and those nuances can and do reflect different cultural attitudes. For example, there is no English equivalent to wel[1], the Dutch word for reinforcing a positive sentiment.
[1]: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/wel#Dutch
That's a misunderstanding of Treuer's point. English is able to define English nations and express the English cultural perspective. He's not arguing that language, generally, is a tool for communication - he's saying that specific languages each yield their own specific identities.
To address the point more generally - languages do, for most speakers, have an influence on thought. People acknowledge that effect to varying degrees, from "you can't think what you can't express" to "language is intertwined with culture and culture differentiates thought" (i.e. not quite Sapir-Worf).
As an anecdotal argument - monolingual speakers often expect translation to be one-to-one, bar idioms. The fact is languages differ in nuance for different kinds of terms, to the point where a mapping might be one-to-many, many-to-one, or completely absent - and those nuances can and do reflect different cultural attitudes. For example, there is no English equivalent to wel[1], the Dutch word for reinforcing a positive sentiment.
[1]: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/wel#Dutch
This is a sidetrack, but is “wel” like “do”, as per the examples on Wiktionary? Or simply like the English word “well”?
"wel" is basically nothing like the English "well", except in archaic speech. It is similar to "do", but you can't use "do" to positively affirm nearly as much as you could use "wel". There is simply no way to directly translate it, and it has no equivalent in English - though you can describe it, as the positive "not".
Agreed.
Is there any evidence of this common claim that obscure languages "may contain some of the most critical solutions to the problems we face as humans"? What kind of problems is he talking about there? Has it ever happened before?
Does it need to? If a language interest a community, then it's reason enough to learn it.
Anyway, if you're a deaf person, a sign language is going to be a hell lot more useful than a spoken language, since the deaf can effectively communicate in say...ASL, as opposed to spoken English. They do still need to learn English, if only to interact with the larger community.
And ASL is interesting because you can some ideas communicate ideas more effectively than you could do through spoken words. ASL has a lot of opportunity for iconicity.
I learned it because I am curious about the language with no practical application in mind, but hopefully one day in the future, I will use it to communicate with the deaf and that will be one of the coolest way I will ever help a person.
Does it need to? If a language interest a community, then it's reason enough to learn it.
Anyway, if you're a deaf person, a sign language is going to be a hell lot more useful than a spoken language, since the deaf can effectively communicate in say...ASL, as opposed to spoken English. They do still need to learn English, if only to interact with the larger community.
And ASL is interesting because you can some ideas communicate ideas more effectively than you could do through spoken words. ASL has a lot of opportunity for iconicity.
I learned it because I am curious about the language with no practical application in mind, but hopefully one day in the future, I will use it to communicate with the deaf and that will be one of the coolest way I will ever help a person.
> Does it need to? If a language interest a community, then it's reason enough to learn it.
I've nothing against people voluntarily choosing to learn a language. But most language learning is done by children who are heavily pressured if not outright forced into it by their parents (who usually, hypocritically, do not put the same time into language learning themselves). That's cruel in my book.
I've nothing against people voluntarily choosing to learn a language. But most language learning is done by children who are heavily pressured if not outright forced into it by their parents (who usually, hypocritically, do not put the same time into language learning themselves). That's cruel in my book.
I think it is cruel that their language was taken away from them, but I find it inspiring they are trying to rebuild their linguistics community. Not every child will like what they are taught, but if they can create an environment where the language is used, the kids are likely to follow. I hardly see how that is cruel.
Were you ever made to learn a useless language? It feels even worse than a waste of your time because it's also taking up space in your brain. Just judging by my own experience of Welsh.
No. It is kind of sad when a language dies, but for the individuals that might have once spoken that obscure language they are now instead speaking a more common language that opens up a much large world for them.
They have a much greater chance of contributing to humanity if they have access to all that a common language provides.
They have a much greater chance of contributing to humanity if they have access to all that a common language provides.
I'm with you, and frankly the other replies sort of prove your point. No one has given any example of what you asked for and everyone seems to think learning a language like that is easy and simple and won't displace more important activities...
This doesn't speak to the question, but as for language learning displacing more important activities: young children learn new languages pretty much effortlessly, and no one has found anything to indicate that second language learning as a small child gets in the way of anything else.
From what I gather from my Dad, who speaks a good amount of Ojibwemowin, the language has Nature conservation principles embedded in it.
I'm struck by how many of them have seemingly ethnic-Japanese facial features.
Not just Japanese, but East (and North) Asian in general. In fact, because of the genetic similarities, and of course lack of samples, a lot of DNA profiling lumps Indigenous Americans and East Asians in one group.
I have Native American ancestry, and was doing research on our history and was shocked to see the grouping, but also not so shocked, as it makes sense.
I have Native American ancestry, and was doing research on our history and was shocked to see the grouping, but also not so shocked, as it makes sense.
The Athabaskan languages (Slave, Gwich'in, Navajo = Dene, Apache, Chilcotin, and a host of others) have been shown by linguists to be probably related to the Yeniseian languages of central Siberia. If this is true, it does not however mean that the other Native American languages are also related to Yeiseian, since the Athabaskan languages are not known to be related to any other languages of the Americas.
But of course it's likely that the ancestors of the other Native American groupings did come from Asia, via the Bering Strait, which at various times was above water--there are just no plausible connections between these languages and languages of Asia, which is not surprising given the time depth.
But of course it's likely that the ancestors of the other Native American groupings did come from Asia, via the Bering Strait, which at various times was above water--there are just no plausible connections between these languages and languages of Asia, which is not surprising given the time depth.
Bering Strait
I figured. I just find it super cool to see contemporary signs of something so far back in history.
Yeah ... but which way? (And I'm betting on the Aleutians)
Learning English or Chinese or C# would vastly improve people lives. Learning Ojibwe is less useful than learning klingon...
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2) Growing up in Northern Wisconsin, the only public radio station we reliably received was from the Ojibwe reservation (https://www.wojb.org) and featured a segment called "Ojibwe word of the day". I thought I'd remembered the word for "moon", but checking the wonderful online Ojibwe dictionary at UMN (https://ojibwe.lib.umn.edu), I think I must be mistaken --- or maybe there are multiple words for moon.
3) Anton Treuer (the subject of the article) teaches at Bemidji State, while his brother David teaches at USC. David's 2013 book "Rez Life: An Indian's Journey Through Reservation Life" is an accessible and I think accurate introduction to the complexity of life on modern reservations (https://www.amazon.com/Rez-Life-Indians-Journey-Reservation/...).