Page 24 - Alderville First Nation
P. 24
Language
Our people are Mississaugas of the Anishinabek Nation,
and Anishinaabemowin is our ancestral language. Over the
years, residential and mission schools denied our people the
opportunity to speak our language.
Now there are few fluent speakers of Anishinaabemowin
in our community, but most of us speak English on a daily
basis. We speak English primarily because we spend most
of our lives in English-speaking settings. We use the English
language in our homes and in our schools. Young people learn
Anishinaabemowin in classroom settings much like other
students in Ontario learn French.
The people in our community who speak Anishinaabemowin
have a very special way of thinking. In Anishinaabemowin,
many words represent concepts, so it is impossible to translate
the language into English word for word. One word might
paint a whole picture in an Anishinaabemowin speaker’s mind.
This means that how we think in the English language is very
different from how we think in Anishinaabemowin.
Our language was once completely oral—we did not write in
the language—but that has changed over time. We now have a
system of writing that goes back to the 1830s, although the real
communication in our language remains oral.
The people in
our community who speak
Anishinaabemowin have a
very special way of thinking.
22 Alderville First Nation
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