By Justin Neely, CPN Language Department Director
Bozho Jayek, (Hello everyone),
It has been a busy summer with the language department. We are into our fifth week of our master apprentice summer immersion camp. We had two individuals, Kay Mattena and Marilyn Annanders, who were funded to be with us from the Endangered Language Fund Grant from Yale University, and then Work Force and Education helped us to fund an additional person. We also had three people audit the course and join us who were not paid interns, as well as the language staff who participated. The participants have shown impressive growth in both their understanding and ability to communicate in the language. We spend eight weeks, or 320 hours, working with these individuals, and at the end of the three-year grant, they will have close to 1,000 hours of working in the language and with the language. We also do a number of cultural activities with the participants, such as loom beading, moccasin making, dice and bowl making/learning the game and bow making. We just got finished working with Tribal member Russell Yott, who makes bows and learned the ins and outs of constructing a bow using both more traditional tools, like a draw knife, and more modern tools to speed up the process.
We are excited to be adding our Potawatomi high school course to two more districts this upcoming year: North Rock Creek and Epic Charter schools. We currently have the ability to offer the language to any school district in Oklahoma for world language credit.
By the time this article arrives, we will have just wrapped up Festival and will be ready for the Potawatomi Language Conference and Gathering in Dowagiac, Michigan. If you are interested in working on the language this summer, check out our introduction course at learning.potawatomi.org. Here you will find an introduction course and a middle school course we have developed. Also check out our online dictionary at potawatomidictionary.com. Also, go to potawatomi.org and click on language; there you will find a link to our two YouTube channels — one more geared to adult learners and the other geared to children. There are hundreds of videos on each site. We have been working on Winnie the Pooh in Potawatomi. The book is in public domain now, so we are able to translate it and make it available in Potawatomi and English. We are currently wrapping up the sixth chapter of the 10-chapter book. We are making them into chapter-by-chapter videos with some animation thrown in.
Gshatemget — It is hot (Guh shot dam git)
Niben — It is summer. (nee bin)
Mno gishget — It is a good day. (Mino geesh get)
Gi mno gishget — It was a good day. (Gee mino geesh get)
Wi mno gishget — It is going to be a good day. (wee mino geesh get)
Ni je ga zhechkeyen nago? — What did you do yesterday? (Nee juh gah zhich kay yin nahgo)
Nago ngi-gwedemojge. — I went fishing yesterday. (Nah go nuh gee gweh duh moch gay)
Mtegwab ngi-wzheton. — I made a bow. (Mtugwahb nuh gee wzhuh tone)
Mtegwabek — Hickory Tree (literally, bow tree, which we historically made bows out of up north) (Mtug wabuk)
Migwetch (Thank you)