(birds tweeting) (soft contemplative music) - [Waabishkiimiigwan] You know how they say we used to talk to everything?

Talk to those trees again when you put your semaa out and think of yourself as the little brother, the little sibling to everything we depend on here.

That's what I really like to think of.

(soft contemplative music) So one of the first things I did and how I got into it was someone asked me to help to start Waadookodaading.

Waadookodaading is the Ojibwe immersion school in Hayward, Wisconsin.

In schools, we think of language as vocabulary.

Usually, it veers towards text.

Language you use is markedly different when you're at home than if you're in a classroom or institutional domain.

And we need it to be spoken in homes.

Then, it's naturally passed on.

I think of language revitalization as rebuilding relationships.

We currently have a design team working on an Ojibwe language video game essentially, but the project before this was the forest walks.

(speaking Ojibwe) And we learned so much from listening to kids and elders walking in the forest in Ojibwe.

(speaking Ojibwe) Kids go to things, and they're curious, and they want to know.

and they'll say, "What's this?"

And they'll look at this, and they'll feel it, or they'll taste it, or they'll smell it and they make a relationship.

It's so opposite of how we do education.

(speaking Ojibwe) (soft contemplative music) - Using technology, it's kind of opened up the field of education.

I have been focusing really on social media.

Hello, all of my relatives.

Here is one I've waited a long time to share with you all.

How do you say "Mississippi" in Ojibwe?

Misi-ziibi, Misi-ziibi.

That word part "Misi" means large, big, giant.

My goal was to make the language accessible to anyone who wanted to hear it.

What I loved about putting the language online is it made the language something that you could learn in the comfort and privacy of your own home.

You don't have to be in a classroom to learn the language.

Teaching one word a day, that may not lead to fluency, but it may lead to a deeper level of appreciation.

What I may be doing is passing down teachings that were shared with me to people I'll never speak to, maybe someone coming seven generations from now.

(soft contemplative music) - [Waabishkiimiigwan] The Hawaiians told us that radio is the best thing.

It's maybe not the most glamorous new tool, new shiny tool, but everybody listens to the radio in their car.

(radio static buzzing) - Boozhoo, hey, that was "Good Old Boys Like Me" from Don Henley.

It is 6:33 a.m. and it is Friday, April 8th... Let's get into a set of bad jokes.

Let's get in with some native jokes.

All right, here we go.

With your best rez accent, everybody knows this one.

Hey, what do you call a man with one leg longer than the other?

Not even!

All right, let's start off the hour here.

Let's see, Minnesota Native News, "A Way Into Your Heart" from Steam Powered Giraffe.

We do the Ojibwe word of the day and we do the Ojibwe phrase of the day at the top of the hour.

It changes every day, but I do try to make sure that's always in there.

And I do try to use a little very basic language.

"Mino gigizheb," good morning.

You know, "aaniin," hi, "boozhoo," hi.

(speaking Ojibwe) - I think of technology as just another tool.

It's a pencil and paper souped up on energy.

That appropriate technology idea, you don't have to use the most bells and whistles, the most cutting edge.

You have to use what's appropriate for the situation.

(speaking Ojibwe) We're reclaiming our language, our Indigenous language, and we want the land back.

(laughing) The language focuses your attention in a certain way.

It kind of tells you what's important, or what to think about, or points you in different directions.

It's like a road, you know?

If there's not a road there, you don't go down there.

And that's the way language works in your mind.

And that means you have access to other ways of seeing the world.

(speaking Ojibwe) (soft contemplative music) We had a documentation grant to do conversations.

We called that Ojibwe Movies.

When we did the stories for the Ojibwe Movies, the elders made up stories.

I mean, that's what I mean by elevate it.

Like to see themselves, or to hear their voices, or to hear their language on an app or in a movie makes it part of the modern age for them.

It makes them feel proud.

So from that, we were kind of inspired to say, how do we get this to more people?

What do our kids like to do?

A lot of young people like to play video games.

So these were just very fresh brainstorming designs.

This group came up with a game where there were different islands and you have a quest, but you realized you can't do it by yourself at some point.

So it was sort of a collaborative design.

There's a black snake.

White people are trying to steal the land.

That's not a very new idea.

(laughing) (soft contemplative music) - I know some language, my kids know some of the language, but my grandkids, they're gonna take it further than what I want.

I want my kids to take it further than what I did, and I want my grandkids to take it further than what they did, and to keep the language alive.

And everybody should do that, inspire people to speak the language so they can take it further than what you did and just let it keep going.

- I hope, I hope that they see the beauty.

I hope they see the very profound teachings that have been passed down for thousands of years.

A hundred years from now, I'd love to see the people be able to pass that down to the generations who are coming.

- I feel very hopeful just 'cause of what I've seen.

It's incredible.

Sometimes, I have to poke myself.

This is just one place that I know about.

I think it's happening everywhere.

It's a feeling I get.

It's like seeing the world in black and white and then it's gonna be in color.

(soft contemplative music) (speaking Ojibwe) (birds tweeting) (soft contemplative music) (soft contemplative music) (dynamic musical flourish)