Download/print this book:
“Anishnaabemowin – Miinwa Anishnaabe zheyaawin: Our Language, Our Culture”
– 64 pages (1.3 MB file size)
The author, Gordon Shawanda, has given permission to make this book available here (and on the IPSMO site) for download at no cost for all aspiring students of Anishnaabemowin (Ojibwe language). It is divided into 18 lessons/themes.
From the book’s preface:
This book has been prepared for students of the Ojibwe Language and community education programs. Many thanks to all elders, teachers, past and present, who have gathered and shared information so our children can keep the language alive and blossoming.
We do recognize the need of fluent speakers or learners from other Ojibwe Nations to change and/or add words to keep in step to your way of speaking. We realize there are differences in dialects and we welcome any corrections. This project gave me an opportunity to research the language, and feel the movement of our Ancestors’ sacred knowledge prodding me to compile this information and to share with Our People.
— G. Zhaawande
Copies of the book are physically available for $10 at the Hamilton Native Learning Centre / Hamilton Regional Indian Centre, who originally published the book in 2001. Contact info: 712 Main St E., Hamilton ON, L8M 1K6, 905-548-9593, www.hric.ca
You can read more from Gordon in the pages of the V5 N1 2010 First Peoples Child & Family Review journal: “Voice of an Elder: Zhaawonde - Dawn of a New Day”
The last page of the Anishinaabemowin book PDF file is not in the actual hard-copy book, but an addendum here online – an Ojibwe Thanksgiving Prayer translated by Violet Shawanda, Gordon’s aunt. To read my notes from a teaching session from Violet Shawanda on the language, please see in the booklet ‘My Entry into Aboriginal Understanding‘.
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