By Justin Neely, CPN Language Department Director
Bozho Jayek, (Hello everyone),
There is a lot going on with the Language Department this month. First, I want to welcome the newest member of our department, Shelly Watson. She was just recognized for her five-year anniversary here at the Tribe. She has only been with us for a couple of months now but has already become a valuable member of our team.
By the time you receive this Hownikan, we will be getting ready to start up our new six-week, twice a week language class which is being taught by Josey Wood and Cole Rattan. The first class is March 5. It will be every Tuesday and Thursday for six weeks from 6 p.m. Central Time to about 7:30 p.m. The class is at the Tribe’s Cultural Heritage Center. There will also be an online option. If you need the link sent to you, please email language@potawatomi.org.
We will also be having our annual Bbon Yatsokewen Winter Storytelling event. It will be March 13 from 6 to 7:30 p.m. It will be at the Cultural Heritage Center. We have always had a pretty good turnout for this event. If you would like to attend in person or online, please RSVP at language@potawatomi.org.
We are also offering an Elders class from 11:45 a.m. to noon at the Elders Center. We do it right before the noon meal on Wednesdays. This class is taught by Cole Rattan and Shelly Watson. Make sure to join us on Wednesdays.
If you haven’t tried out some of our online courses, go to learning.potawatomi.org. You can create an account and start accessing content. We currently have an Introduction course, middle school age course, and several others that are in the works including a grammar based course and a children’s course for younger kids.
Also, we are constantly adding to and improving on our online dictionary. One neat feature we have been developing with the assistance of our IT Department is a conjugation tool. The first one is specifically for VTA (verb transitive animate) verbs. These verbs tend to be a little challenging to conjugate. You are able to choose from a drop-down box the person then the verb then the person being acted on. We hope to eventually have this available on all our VTA verbs and then even for some of the other conjugations. We hope this tool will make using the language even easier for students.
We are currently working on Winnie the Pooh in Potawatomi. The classic novel is now in public domain. We are making the 10 chapters into episodes which we will release as we finish each chapter. We also have a series of skits which comes out each Tuesday. The skits are designed to build off of the previous skits. First you listen to the skit, then we go over the vocab, then we translate the skits line by line, and finally you hear the skit one more time.
If you are interested, we will be hosting a master apprentice summer program for eight weeks this summer starting sometime in May. Email if you are interested in applying. You can also apply online at cpn.news/masterapprentice24.
Bedo gwi-wabmegom gaga she Bodéwadmimwen kenomagewen.
We hope to see you all soon at Potawatomi Language Class.
Migwetch (Thank you)