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Anicinabemowin — the Algonquin Language

The language of the Anicinabeg of the Kichi Sibi — the Ottawa River and its tributaries — the people from whose own name the whole Algonquian family of languages took its name.

Recovered texts are here to read. The people's own curriculum doorway is in preparation — in partnership with the Algonquin nations' own speakers. The goal is the whole collection in Anicinabemowin: every book to read and to hear, here and in the school. Nothing is published until they have guided and reviewed it.

The language

Anicinabemowin — the Algonquin language — is a close kin of Anishinaabemowin, and the two are neighbours in one continuum; this doorway is Algonquin's own, not a room inside the Anishinaabe door. Its people are the Algonquin nations of the Ottawa watershed: Kitigan Zibi, Mitchikanibikok Inik (Barriere Lake), Pikwakanagan, Wolf Lake, Timiskaming, Eagle Village, Kitcisakik, Lac Simon, Abitibiwinni, and Long Point among them. Before “Algonquian” named a continent of languages, it named this people.

The oldest books on this shelf in the language were written down at Oka, the Lake of Two Mountains, where Algonquin and Nipissing families lived beside the Mohawk mission and the Sulpician Jean-André Cuoq learned their language from them. Many of those families afterward removed up the Ottawa to what is now Kitigan Zibi — where the language is taught today in the community's own school, in its Algonquin Language & Cultural Program and the Mokasige immersion, under the nation's own education authority.

Their own teachers

Algonquin is taught by the nations' own programs. At Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg, the Algonquin Language and Culture Coordinator develops the materials for the nation's whole language program, the language runs through the nation's school from the early grades onward, and the Mokasige immersion gives the youngest students a half-day family of the language with their elders.

Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg — Algonquin Language & Cultural Program — the nation's own language program and its coordinator
Kitigan Zibi Kikinamadinan — the Mokasige immersion — the nation's school and its Algonquin immersion half-day

The writing

The recovered witnesses below keep Cuoq's French-based mission spelling, the dress he gave the language at Oka in the 1870s and 1880s. The communities' own teachers today write in the orthographies their programs use; the two are not the same, and the witnesses are read here as the historical documents they are, exactly as printed.

Recovered reading

Two recovered witnesses stand here, both from Cuoq's hand at Oka. The first is small and complete: the Eight Beatitudes, Matthew 5:3–10, in Algonquin (1873) — the whole of that printing's text, standing exactly as printed. Read the Eight Beatitudes in Algonquin (1873)

The second is the opening of his dictionary: the Lexique de la langue algonquine (1886) — its front matter entire, its grammar of the letters, and the first entries of the letter A, exactly as printed. It is a language and learning witness, recovered as a historical text — not a Sacred Name edition; the collection's own edition in this language waits for the partnership. Read the front matter and first entries of Cuoq's Lexique (1886)

The Lexique now stands two printed pages further: the letter A continued — the entry —ABO taken whole from the foot of p. 8, and printed pp. 9–10 complete, eighteen entries in all, ending at the foot of p. 10 where ACAM begins (its examples stand on p. 11 and are not yet recovered). It is the same dictionary witness, a language and learning text — not a Sacred Name edition. Read the letter A continued — —ABO and pp. 9–10 of Cuoq's Lexique (1886)

The Lexique now stands four printed pages further: the letter A continued — the entry ACAM taken whole from its headword line at the foot of p. 10, and printed pp. 11–14 in order, nineteen entries in all, ending at the foot of p. 14 where —ADJIM,o begins (the rest of that entry stands on p. 15 and is not yet recovered; the letter A itself runs past p. 27). It is the same dictionary witness, a language and learning text — not a Sacred Name edition. Read the letter A continued — ACAM and pp. 11–14 of Cuoq's Lexique (1886)

An open invitation

This door stands open by invitation. If you are a speaker, teacher, or language keeper of Anicinabemowin, or you carry its authority, this programme asks to work with you — to be guided, corrected, and reviewed by the people whose language this is. In this collection the holy names are never invented: what the Creator is called in a language is for its own speakers to give, and the spelling of every text is theirs to settle. Write to the publisher at [email protected].

The first door is the Algonquin nations' own education authorities; Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg's language program is the one linked above.

To hear it

When Anicinabemowin opens here, it will be heard as well as read — in its own voice, spoken and recorded by Algonquin speakers. Until then this door is silent in Anicinabemowin on purpose: the first voice heard in it should be the people's own.

The other doors

One small advertisement stands at the bottom of this page — never inside the reading text. The words of the book stand more prominent than the advertisement.