Menominee Language Class - Helping Sustain a Nation

Fellow classmate Dale Kakkak learns vocab for articles of clothing.

Menominee Language class meets every Tuesday at 6pm. This is one of the highlights of my week. The purpose of the class is to learn and practice Menominee, but sometimes it seems as though I learn more about Menominee culture, myself, and my community through the language.  Keeping the language alive is an important aspect to community health and culture -- not to mention, an important aspect of sustainability.

Menominee Language, like many American Indian languages, can reveal a lot about ways of thinking and of life. It brings history alive in ways that books, movies, and artifacts can't. In Menominee language class, I learn about the different ways words are cataloged and defined. For example, unlike in English, objects in Menominee may be animate and inanimate depending on what is defined as "alive" or "not alive." Words and definitions may differ in certain contexts. Think of the following examples: a tree limb, a limb broken off from a tree, a stone, a stone used in ceremony, or a stick a dog is playing with. In which of these cases is the piece of wood or stone living? Language class allows me to see and speak of objects in a new way that can't be done in another language.

I've had fun learning the different months and what each time of the year means. Though there are different ways to say November, it is most often "Pākatāhkamekat-kēsoq" and refers to "freezing ground". (And there are far more words for 'snow' in Menominee than there are in English.) February, Namāepen-kēsoq, translates to "sucker fish-moon".

Last class, a classmate asked how to say "I read" in Menominee, which was interesting, because Menominee was always a spoken language. Today, the Menominee way to say "I read" is "wētan," which translates more literally to "It is telling." It is instances like this where I get to understand more about culture and history and less about learning vocabulary, (though vocabulary can be fun too). My favorite word we've learned thus far is the word for cup, "kuapenakaehsaeh."

If you would like to join in the roundtable class, “Conversational Menominee” is offered every Tuesday night in the College of Menominee Nation Culture Building at the Keshena campus. Ron Corn is the instructor (follow his twitter handle here! @wapemen)

To watch a great Menominee Language story, check out this video by "The Ways".

Article written by SDI Social Media Coordinator Julie Edler.