OJIBWE LANGUAGE PROJECT
*English dictionaries add over 100 new words every year, with hundreds more not making the cut.
*By the time we reach first grade, most children have an active vocabulary of several thousand words.
*Even as adults, we continue to learn 50-60 new words on average each year.
*On June 10, 2009, Global Language Monitor estimated that the English language has over one million words, although the claim is controversial.
Language Crisis
Many native languages are in danger of becoming extinct as fewer and fewer people are native speakers of the language. For hundreds of years, American policy towards American Indians has been one of assimilation, encouraging people to give up their heritage to "become American". Another reason languages disappear is that they fail to keep up with the times and cannot be used effectively to communicate modern terminology.
New Ojibwe Words
In early July, 2009, a group of Ojibwe elders met for three days at the Minnesota Humanities Center in Saint Paul to create and agree upon terms for new concepts. These terms are new additions into the canon of Ojibwe language although, like many terms in English, they have existed in spoken culture before being "approved" in written form.This resulted in a New Ojibwe Dictionary - Aaniin Ekidong.
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Coming Soon
Details of continuing Ojibwe Language resources, books, conferences, and more.