Ojibwe

I'm learning Ojibwe.

Do you speak Ojibwe?

Yes, I speak a little Ojibwe.

The name Michigan comes from the Ojibwe word for Lake Michigan, Michigami.

I speak Ojibwe.

I don't speak Ojibwe.

I am Ojibwe.

I'm not Ojibwe. I'm Lakota.

He's not Iroquois. He's Ojibwe.

I like speaking Ojibwe.

On a Tuesday in April 2017, Janet Macbeth composed an all-office email. “My story,” read the subject line in Nishnaabemwin, the Ojibwe language. “Hello everyone,” the email continued in Nishnaabemwin. “My name is Janet.”

Endangered language communities would be thrilled with and proud of that kind of exposure for their language, like when Star Wars was dubbed into Navajo and Ojibwe.

The Anishinaabe people are American Indians who have historically been associated with the Great Lakes region of what is now called Canada and the United States. The Anishinaabe people of the Great Lakes include the Odawas (also known as the Ottawas), the Chippewas (also known as the Ojibwes), and the Potawatomis (also known as the Bodéwadmis)—three interrelated groups that are sometimes collectively referred to as the Three Fires Confederacy.

Then for 50 years its story lay dormant — although the Dream Dance remained a component of Ojibwe life both north and south of the Canada-U.S. border until its rediscovery by a Winnipeg historian and her colleagues.