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Conversational Ojibwe: hear the language on new online dictionary

When European settlers first came to the region more than a century ago, it was likely the language of the Chippewa or Dakotah Indians the immigrants first heard.

In order to help preserve the spoken language of the Ojibwe people, the University of Minnesota has just released an online dictionary of the language and culture.

The Ojibwe People’s Dictionary allows anyone to hop on the computer and learn more about the history, meaning and sound of any Ojibwe word.

Listening to the recorded voice of an Ojibwe elder, two Detroit Lakes teenagers learned words their great-grandparents spoke daily in Minnesota.

“I think it’s cool,” said Kristen Strong. “I like it.”

“It helps a lot,” added Marissa Annette Gillespie. “The Internet is accessible and especially the younger generations use it a lot more and it will help us a lot.”

With just a handful of high schools and colleges offering the Ojibwe language as a class, it is hoped this online version will help preserve the spoken word.

“One word can mean a lot of stories,” said Joe Carrier, who advises native students. “That is how our language is taught — stories, stories, stories.”

So what is the online dictionary all about?

“Toss aside your idea of a traditional dictionary, and instead envision a multi-layered, multi-dimensional, online collection of Ojibwe language, culture, documents and artifacts,” according to a forward on the site’s home page.

“We are bringing together more than just a dictionary,” said Ojibwe History Specialist Brenda Child.

Users of the Ojibwe People’s Dictionary will be able to click on a word or sentence and hear them spoken by Ojibwe elders. Entries in the dictionary will be linked to images, sound, and text resources on Ojibwe culture.

“The whole crux of the project is listening to voices. They give it life,” said Project Head John Nichols.

Nearly all fluent speakers of Ojibwe are over 65. The Ojibwe People’s Dictionary is designed to preserve and revitalize the language and also make Ojibwe cultural resources more accessible.

The Minnesota Historical Society and the University of Minnesota have partnered to create the dictionary with $479,481 from the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.

They envision it as an invaluable tool not only for speakers and students of the language, scholars and researchers, but for anybody who can log on to the internet.

“It’s free and accessible to everybody,” Child said.

“My great-grandmother died … she was the only one fluent and no one was as fluent,” said Gillespie. “It’s nice to have this to (hear) certain words rather than look them up.”

With so many towns, rivers and lakes with Ojibwe names, it is expected non-Indians also will use the online dictionary to learn more about where they are from.

Ojibwe, also called Chippewa, is the heritage language of more than 200,000 Ojibwe people who reside in the United States and Canada.

The White Earth, Leech Lake and Red Lake reservations are the three largest Ojibwe reservations in Minnesota.

Ojibwe is not a single standardized language, but a chain of linked local varieties, grouped into nearly a dozen dialects.

Each dialect (and within dialects, each local variety) differs in details of pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar from the others, with differences between non-adjacent dialects often being great enough to impede understanding between their speakers.

Type “wild rice” into the dictionary’s search engine, for example, and there are four choices to hear the word in Ojibwe – including two speakers from Leech Lake and one from Red Lake, along with information about the speaker.

You can search in English or Ojibwe.

Speakers of Ojibwe consider their language to be precise, descriptive, and visual, and feel that it is among the greatest treasures of their cultural heritage.

Ojibwe is an endangered language, according to the dictionary website, which can be found at http://ojibwe.lib.umn.edu/ or by entering “Ojibwe People’s Dictionary” into a search engine.

(Kevin Wallevand reports for WDAY TV, owned by Forum Communications Co.)

http://www.dl-online.com/event/article/id/65794/

 

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