American Indian Studies Ojibwe Language Revitalization Project
Recruit dedicate community members to take part in language instruction at the University level. Financially assist full-time committed language students in need. Train a qualified undergraduate student as an apprentice to assist instructors. Train three teacher student practicum’s in immersion classrooms to assist fluent instructors. Instructors and students will plan activities for enrichment ( to hold/attend events).
The Ojibwe language is an indigenous language of Minnesota, and like many other indigenous languages in the United States, has become endangered due to the effects of boarding schools, and policies which prohibited its use. It is spoken in Minnesota, North Dakota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ontario, and Manitoba.
Established in June of 1969, the Department of American Indian Studies is the oldest such program in the country with departmental status. Founded amidst the civil rights struggles of the sixties and early seventies, the program has long been committed to the development of theories and methodologies that reflect American Indian perspectives and it embraces ways of knowing that stand in contrast to the linear analytic Euro-American studies typically found in colleges and universities.
$550,000 in 2010 and $700,000 in 2011 are appropriated to the Indian Affairs Council to issue grants for programs to preserve Dakota and Ojibwe Indian languages and to foster educational programs in Dakota and Ojibwe languages.
Through American Indian focused language and culture courses students have gained advanced proficiency and knowledge - both written and oral of the Ojibwe language. Students are awarer of language revitalizations history, issues, research, and efforts on state, regional, national and international levels. Also have started to become familiar with basi principles of language revitalization teaching methodologies.