I Secretly Learned the World’s Rarest Language Then Met Tribal Elders

on the remote Walpole island of the border between Canada and the United States is a community of indigenous Ojibwe people who have been living in and around the area for thousands of years before Europeans ever arrived yet due to centuries of often forced assimilation most people here speak only English and there are currently less than 10 Elders on the island who still fluently speak the ancient language some people from the community set me up to learn the language with one of these elders and then they invited me out to wapable Island aka the kedron to try to test my skills with the elders and other locals none of whom had any idea that I had been learning one of the rarest dialects of one of the world's rarest languages thanks to its wild verb morphology where for example verbs conjugate differently depending on whether the subject is animate or inanimate Ojibwe was hands down one of the most difficult languages I've ever had the pleasure of learning but it was honestly totally worth it I'm running this video as a fundraiser for the First Nations development Institute and starting it off with my own donation so if you're interested in helping support native communities check out the info below we started with the traditional morning ceremony to greet the new day [Music] [Music] thank you I feel cleansed um [Music] New York computer [Music] is um [Music] but first before seeing the elders coffee Ojibwe style oh you want a coffee no these are my old co-workers oh wow cool cool cool cool wow [Music] yeah so um win [Music] uh Channel window channel in and you can buy nibnet in wherewin in my channel that's what I do yeah you're amazing how long have you been foreign [Laughter] [Music] foreign [Music] again yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah that's me yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah [Laughter] well anyway sorry I got a pumpkin spice taking a small pumpkin spice pumpkin spice latte potato es yeah yeah then Tiffany and I went to pick up some traditional corn soup for our meeting with the others it smells really good in here so yeah okay [Music] I can't do it okay by New York New York yeah New York I've been learning online with uh with so thank you thank you that's supposed to be like chili oh boy um foreign [Music] foreign foreign [Music] [Music] you know when I when I first heard about and the situation with the language here I I thought like oh there's only you know 10 speakers left me at the school now it's raising the younger generation so it seems like a very positive uh thing you know okay it gets to go yeah it's very helpful but we can only go so far yeah on our own yeah we really need the handful of speakers that are mumpy that are willing to work with us I have been learning for years and I still don't know how to conjugate as as she would or she would and I'm still learning and I think it's going to be a lifelong Learning Journey for us all years ago back in my time you know it wasn't hard it wasn't and it's because the whole community and since we were small everything just changed you know it's not we don't lift the old off Indian way anymore we're all white people who do white people stuff in a long time if we were brought it the old way didn't have no Hydro yeah no electricity nothing no we burnt wood stoves no everybody's got cars we didn't have any cars we only had horses and horses my dad had horses and not they had horse and Buggies he used to cut wood back in the bush for me it's it's harder this way than it was when I was younger while this new technology you know I was born in a house and I was born in no hospital and then that's how we spoke with India we couldn't when I went away to residential school I didn't know how to speak English the school that I went to we couldn't speak our language we got a whipping I still have a scar over my left knee the sorrow teacher she banged my head against the cement well about a month and a half because they found 97 bar bodies and we are survivors Linda Joanne and I the song I'm gonna sing I like to call it the national anthem of the Ojibwe language others like to call it uh the residential school song [Music] gave me [Music] away [Music] after a quick prayer in Ojibwe it was time to eat meet him medium uh bequatch the question right first first time okay all right man foreign [Music]

Channel: Xiaomanyc 小马在纽约

Views: 2,385,016

Keywords: xiaomanyc, native american, ojibwe, nishnabe, nishnabemowin, anishna, anishnabemowin, walpole, walpole island, bkejwanong, anishinaabemowin, rarest language, nishinaabemowin, nishinabemowin

Id: sWfzpJG_yRE

Length: 10min 58sec (658 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 15 2022