Tribal Member Available for Language Immersion

Observer Staff

7/13/2006 12:00:00 AM

Research indicates that there are about 6,000 languages in the world today and that within 100 years over half of these will be extinct.

Notably, the most vulnerable and "endangered" are Indigenous languages-those languages that can be traced back historically to the place where they currently are used. Of the estimated 300 Native languages spoken at the time of the first European immigration, only 175 survive in the U.S. today. The slow but consistent death of Indigenous languages worldwide has reached a crisis condition.

A formal assessment survey of the language in the Isabella Reservation community took place last year.

Of the 638 respondents from the Saginaw Chippewa Tribe:

-6 percent reported Ojibwe as their first language;

-Over half (52 percent) have never interacted with a fluent speaker;

-99 percent of respondents only understand a few phrases or words in the language or none at all;

-81 percent understand 20 or less words;

-83 percent speak 20 or less words;

-78 percent want to learn the language; and

-58 percent selected immersion as the best way to save the language

The potential benefits of language revitalization in Tribal communities are numerous. Research has shown that language immersion education builds family, kinship connections and community. It impacts the health and wellness of a community. It also promotes academic success and strong Tribal identify among youth.

Saginaw Chip-pewa Tribal Elder Bea Colwell, is now available to teach those who wish to learn the language in the Ziibiwing Center's new Anishinabemowin Immersion Room.

Bea is a lifetime resident of the area, having grown up in the Rosebush area just off North Leaton Road. Her parents were the late Abraham Kahgegab ("Forever") and Florence Pelcher. Bea has two children and three grandchildren. Bea and her siblings grew up on the family's farm and she remembers always talking the language with her family in those days.

She worked for 26 years at Central Michigan University, and currently works at the Montessori with the toddlers during the school year and now at the Ziibiwing Center. One of her earliest jobs was working at the old Chieftain Hotel in Mt. Pleasant.

Join Bea Colwell and Kim Wensaut in the Anishinabemowin Immersion Room of the Ziibiwing Center every Tuesday through Thursday from 4 to 6 p.m. No appointment is necessary-just drop in and begin a path to language recovery.