Ojibwe elder teaches language (fwd)

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Thursday, May 29, 2003

Ojibwe elder teaches language

By Molly Miron
Staff Writer
mmiron at bemidjipioneer.com
http://www.bemidjipioneer.com/Main.asp?SectionID=3&SubSectionID=83&ArticleID=9967

CASS LAKE -- A little boy answers the door at Leslie Harper?s home in Cass
Lake with a cheerful ?Biindigen!?

The toddler calling visitors to ?Come in!? is Leslie?s 3-year-old son, Theo
Liberty. He is learning Ojibwe as naturally as he is absorbing English.

?He?s getting there,? Leslie said of Theo?s Ojibwe skill. ?He understands
a lot more than any of us. We have to really encourage him to speak Ojibwe
because of all the English around us. His dad (Adrian Liberty) speaks only
Ojibwe to him.?

Theo and his mother are part of a project in which language apprentices work
with masters to bring their language back to younger generations. Leslie,
28, and by osmosis Theo, are apprentices of Josephine Dunn, 70, of Cass Lake,
a native Ojibwe speaker.

?I only do it one-on-one,? Josephine said. ?I don?t think I could do it in
a class.?

Leslie?s sister, Laurie Harper, directs the master/apprentice program as
part of Anishinaabe Wi Yung (We are Anishinabe people), an Ojibwe project
funded in part by a grant from the Minnesota Department of Education. Masters
and apprentice families are also working together in Mille Lacs and St. Croix
Bands.

The grant provides stipends for both teacher and learner.

?It?s a living situation. It?s not ?This is today?s lesson,?? Laurie said
of the project. ?You?ve baked bread with Josephine. You?ve done laundry.
You?ve gone shopping.?

The learning takes patience and determination, but Laurie described a scene
that always reminds her the effort is totally worthwhile. Leslie and Theo
were with Laurie in the supermarket when an elderly stranger came to her,
almost in tears, saying, ?Do you know how long it?s been since I heard a
young mother speaking to her child like that??

Josephine said English sometimes comes between her and her apprentices, but
they keep working.

?I think anybody can learn,? Josephine said.

She recalled the non-Indian owner of a grocery store in Cass Lake who learned
to speak Ojibwe with his Indian customers.

Laurie and Leslie said their parents, Dennis and Judy Harper of Cass Lake,
heard Ojibwe spoken around the house when they were small children, and probably
spoke the language, too. But the knowledge has skipped a generation.

Laurie and Leslie have visited the Piegan Institute, which is a Blackfeet
immersion program, and a similar Hawaiian program, Ka Haka Wa O Keelikolani
in Hilo. Laurie said she was especially moved to hear Blackfeet students
the same age as her own children speaking their language confidently.

?They were not shy. They were very proud of who they are,? Laurie said. ?That
day was very emotional.?

Learning a language is more than words: with the process comes an understanding
beliefs, culture and life perspectives of the speakers. Laurie began Anishinaabe
We Yung by organizing language conferences. She said elders at the conferences
told her they had been trying to transmit the language for years, so she
decided to stop talking about the concept and do it.

?This is a step in a bigger plan,? Laurie said.

?You have to be patient. I know I am,? Josephine said.

?I?ve been the happiest I?ve ever been in my life working on Ojibwe,? Leslie
said.

Theo, happily unaware of the experiment he is living, ran to his father who
called him in Ojibwe to come put on his makizinan (shoes) to go outside.

?I think that?s where we can start, anyway, with the little ones who are
just learning,? Josephine said. ?That?s how I learned. I don?t know when
I started talking English. I suppose when I went to school. I didn?t even
have an English name on my birth certificate.?