Ojibwe youth camp helps restore once-forbidden language (fwd link)

[Phil Cash Cash]

Ojibwe youth camp helps restore once-forbidden language
By Cynthia Boyd <http://www.tcdailyplanet.net/profiles/cynthia-boyd>,
MinnPost <http://www.tcdailyplanet.net/partners/minnpost>
August 12, 2013

My Norwegian-born grandmother, who arrived on America’s shores in 1912,
played an outsize role in my childhood telling stories of what seemed to us
her exotic homeland where children skied to school, had summer homes on the
fjords and every Christmas baked hundreds of Scandinavian cookies for
family and friends.

Though she spoke English with a distinctive Norwegian accent, my darling,
diminutive grandma who lived to 102, rarely spoke a word of her native
tongue (never an “uff-da”), reverting only as she lay dying to the language
of her birth in speaking out loud “The Lord’s Prayer.”

I see and treasure that Norwegian heritage playing out in my mother’s
family even today with their northern Minnesota cabins in the pines, the
foods we eat and our Christmas traditions, including hymns. (As youngsters,
my sister and I sang the Lutheran hymn “I Am So Glad Each Christmas
Eve”<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ui7hmiItUeI> in
Norwegian to Grandma, bringing tears to her eyes. Waves of emotion still
roll over me when I sing it.)

But what if, as happened to the indigenous people of this state – the
Ojibwe -- my grandmother had been fearful of sharing her Norwegian roots?
What if not speaking her native language had not been her choice?

Access full article below:
http://www.tcdailyplanet.net/news/2013/08/12/ojibwe-youth-camp-helps-restore-once-forbidden-language
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ilat/attachments/20130813/563835b5/attachment.htm>