The government community.

All enrolled in agreement I. Yeah, yeah.

It is an overcast Saturday morning as this group meets at the fund to Lac Anishinaabe more when Waukegan, which is the Gibb way for language house.

The gray skies didn't dampen their enthusiasm for speaking the Ojibwe language.

I'm going into my fifth year.

When I first got here, they didn't have a program, so that first year, that's all I did, was get the lay of the land.

And then the second year I started, and I did come in with a three year strategic plan of my own, which I was following, for the language program.

So in the second year was the building year.

Get some resources together.

The language table was one of the first things that we started up.

Again.

It's grown quite a bit.

We have actually now an international reputation because in June of last year, I took Ricky Defoe with me.

He's one of our language and curriculum specialists, and we went and did a panel presentation in Alberta for this, Stabilizing Indigenous Languages conference.

What arose from that conference was a multimedia Ojibwe language anthology project.

Everybody has different ways of learning, that are most beneficial to them.

And I think audio is is the proven method of learning.

I think the time proven method is just to socialize, to be amongst one another, to gain the fluency skills, the understanding, the confidence and the knowledge, especially to be at ease around, folks that are more proficient than you that use our language.

My position is we, I help orientate the elders in the recordings to make sure they're they're talking about, you know, topics.

So for me, it's actually a really big learning experience because I get to sit around and listen to these elders converse with each other about these really important topics.

And then we go back and we we listen to them talk again and we write down everything they say.

No way.

And we translate it.

And then we talk to them about, is this translation right?

Is this good or would you say this differently in English?

So it's definitely for me, it's a huge learning experience.

Rounding out the group is Tom, Jack and Pat Northrup.

I've been teaching and helping.

With the language.

Here in this area for, probably almost ten years now.

I am a, first language speaker.

We have to know who we are, where we have to know where we come from.

I'm really glad to be in this community, helping with the language.

I'm a learner of the language.

I'm a Dakota.

And.

But they will contour Dakota.

And if efforts are being made in all, all of Indian country, I think now today the resources they have nowadays is just phenomenal.

And And here.

Every time I see, Ricky, he's, he says things to me in Ojibwe and I love it.

I'm a cheerleader for the for the language patent.

Her husband, award winning author, the late Jim Northrup, were also instrumental in establishing the Wayne's Language camp, held annually on the reservation.

As long as this group at the language House is doing the work they love, the Ojibwe language will always have a home.

There are some speakers that will say it's changing, and it's changing immensely when we're when we start to write it down.

That's why I'm trying to move more toward audio to get the speakers that we have to record for us, and anybody can listen to that anywhere, even if you only remember a few words, as long as you use them, it just goes a long way.

I've been surrounded by people my entire life who are practically fluent, whether they're first language speaker or whether they're self-taught.

And so I see people everywhere putting tons of dedication and hard work into the language in themselves.

And the progress they make is immense.

So I don't I don't I'm not afrai The language gives to the world a unique worldview.

Most of the elders are, we have just a few left that speak our language, so it makes it difficult for, to converse on a daily basis.

But we they do contribute in other ways.

And, so that's a, that's a challenge that we have.

We know that our language is so called endangered.

But it has a spirit to it.

And I think the spirit will live on.