By Justin Neely, CPN Language Department Director
Bozho, jayek (Hello, everyone),
It has been a busy summer. We recently wrapped up a community game night on May 13. We will share pictures next month.
By the time this goes out, we will have finished up two beginner classes and an intermediate class. We are expecting about 20 folks to join us for our two-week Beginner Potawatomi Immersion. Our Intermediate/Advanced Immersion camp takes place June 1-12.
We are looking forward to seeing everyone at Festival. We will be having a number of classes. On Friday, June 26, Josey Wood will be teaching a class on making birchbark canoes at the Cultural Heritage Center from 9 a.m. to noon. That evening we will be playing bingo. On Saturday, June 27, we will be playing dice and bowl. We will have an immersion class and children’s class Saturday.
Still coming up this summer is our Youth Language and Culture Camp July 6-10. We have a lot of great resources for folks to start learning the language. For updated information on classes, email [email protected].
If you haven’t checked out our self-paced learning options, go to learning.potawatomi.org. There is an introduction course, a conversation-based course, a children’s course and a grammar-based course. We also have a course at 7000.org that is based on sentences used in various areas of the house. A variety of learning videos are available on our YouTube channel, @CPNLanguage. We have classes, songs, cartoons, full length movies, cultural teachings, skits and so much more.
You can also find a Potawatomi crossword puzzle at cpn.news/crossword.
Our dictionary at potawatomi.org has an awesome amount of content with over 10,000 words. Over 90% of the words have audio. There are tags for looking up words by topic, like nouns > animals > mammals. There is also a verb conjugation tool, which helps with VTA Independent verbs. It’s a great tool for a verb pattern that has close to 35 combinations. There are also related words, so if you look up horse, you might find the verb to ride a horse or other nouns such as saddle, mare, stallion, etc.
We also have a couple of ongoing classes every Tuesday. Shelly teaches an elders class from 9 to 11 a.m. I have an intermediate/advanced class every Thursday from 3 to 4:30 p.m. These classes are both in person.
If you are ready to learn our language, we are ready to help you.
Migwetch (Thank you).