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| 1 CHAPTER ONE Anishinaabemowin: The Anishinaabe Language Kchigaming, miskwaasini’ing, maashkodeng miinwa mitigwaakiing mii sa Anishinaabewakiing . The Great Inland sea, the swamp, the grasslands and the forest are all Anishinaabe country. Although the Anishinaabe people are often called a “woodland” culture, there is much more to Anishinaabe identity. The center of Anishinaabewakiing, or Anishinaabe country, is the life-giving gaming, the “vast water.” The roll of “g” against “m” is still heard when people speak of Lake Superior as Gichi Gumee, the biggest, most kchi, of all seas. The sound is also echoed in the word Michigami, which appeared on Vincenzo Coronelli’s map Partie Occidentale du Canada ou de la Nouvelle France in 1688 and became the name Henry Schoolcraft gave to the territory that became a state in 1837. Anishinaabe elders still say that all the lakes, now named separately, once shared a single name and identity, Chigaming. Beyond the water are miskwaasini’ing, the swamp, and mashkodeng, the grassland. In these words are echoes of miskwa (blood), mashkiki (medicine), 2 | Chapter One and mashkawizi (strength). This middle ground between the bays and rivers is important and an indelible part of Anishinaabe culture. One does not move from the mutable seas to the stationary pines without traveling the land between. On the other side of the circle is mitigwaakiing, the woodlands, which blends several descriptive concepts including mitg (tree), aagawaakwaa (to shade someone), and aki, commonly translated as “land” but closely related to akina, the term for “everything” or “unity.” Anishinaabeg / The Anishinaabe People Anishinaabe language and culture is more than the woodlands, more than the lakes, more than artifacts and ceremonies. It is also the sound of a language that continues to evolve in this place among these people. A billion years ago continents fused, 500 million years ago a shift occurred, and over 5,000 years ago ice formed then melted. These distant events are chronicled in Anishinaabe stories of cataclysmic change and flooding (Grady). Traditional tales describe these vast seas without ever mentioning migration from the area of the Bering Strait, which, Vine Deloria Jr. points out, is an omission “to be taken seriously” (Spirit and Reason 92). Careful readers will see connections between Western science and indigenous narratives, between maps of land and the etymology of language and culture. Language and culture overlap, and sites of inquiry are more complex and diverse than at first imagined. Many indigenous languages are now endangered, and at the core of most language revitalization is the belief that the language reflects the culture, and cultural practices are connected to identity, and place exerts some level of influence over both language and culture. These are complex claims that have been debated for years. What I aim to do here is explore the truth of these ideas while taking into account both community wisdom and academic scholarship. In the examples that began this chapter, it is clear the words to describe Anishinaabe habitat are connected to concepts of what is required to thrive. Mary Isabelle Young beautifully summarizes the community perception of language and worldview. In her book Pimatisiwin: Walking in a Good Way, she shares her own belief that “as aboriginal people we look at things our own way [and] a lot of that is rooted in the language” (115). Like many Anishinaabe people striving to keep the language alive, she finds this idea echoed across genders and generations and Anishinaabe Language | 3 in venues of all kinds. Participants in her study repeatedly connect concepts of grammar and morphology to worldview and well-being. Nouns are not simply classified in two categories; they are “infused with spirit” that one informant, Aanung, explained as a connection between language and worldview. “We see all living things as having spirit and I don’t believe we worship these things. It’s just that we have a relationship with them as living beings and we respect them” (Young 139). Leroy Littlebear puts it another way when he talks about his language: “What I carry around is a combination of words. We become skillful at combinations. . . . The language encompasses all of the following: a constant flux, moving, recombining, energy waves, spirit, animate, relations, renewal and land. . . . I believe that if I do not speak the Anishinaabe language the way my Father taught me, I am underestimating the life force and the spiritual significance of the language” (Young 29). Furthermore, teacher Shirley Williams maintains that we need to move the language...

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