By: Adam Lipman Oct. 6, 2014
During last week’s class, I learned about the Anishinaabe pedagogy, language revitalization and the importance of Indigenous languages. Now with all of these different types of topics, are they really that different? In my opinion, they are all very much alike as they can all be linked together to form one idea. The Anishinaabe pedagogy is a teaching and a form of education to Aboriginal people, which teaches them to learn and connect more with the land itself as opposed to things that were manufactured on it. But not only is it the land that the language is linked to, but also the land’s spirit as there is both a living and spiritual world that connects us all.
Now, these Indigenous languages are very important to the Aboriginal people because they were the initial foundation that was used by their ancestors hundreds of thousands of years in the past. What the Aboriginal people in the modern day now is refer back to the ways that their ancestors used all these years ago. They currently look back at their history including some of the trauma of all the hardships that their people have endured throughout the years and then they try to revitalize those gifts that were given to them. The ability to speak the language of their ancestors is an important gift that reminds them of who they are and what their history was like. It is somewhat resembles a form of spiritual healing for them knowing that they can connect with their community and the earth in a similar manner to their ancestors.
One connection I can make with how the Aboriginal people use their language along with their ancestors’ history is similar to the way my religion looks back at their own history. In the Jewish religion, we spend some of our high holidays along with Friday nights and Saturday mornings reflecting on the lives of our ancestors and all of the hardships they had to endure by reading Hebrew, a language that has been spoken by our people for over thousands of years that still plays a prominent role in our lives.
When I learn about all of these similarities between the Aboriginal and Jewish people, I feel that I can make stronger connections to the Aboriginal people since we are not all that different. We both feel that the language spoken by our ancestors still play an important part of our lives and we can evolve by building on that foundation left by them.
During last week’s class, I learned about the Anishinaabe pedagogy, language revitalization and the importance of Indigenous languages. Now with all of these different types of topics, are they really that different? In my opinion, they are all very much alike as they can all be linked together to form one idea. The Anishinaabe pedagogy is a teaching and a form of education to Aboriginal people, which teaches them to learn and connect more with the land itself as opposed to things that were manufactured on it. But not only is it the land that the language is linked to, but also the land’s spirit as there is both a living and spiritual world that connects us all.
Now, these Indigenous languages are very important to the Aboriginal people because they were the initial foundation that was used by their ancestors hundreds of thousands of years in the past. What the Aboriginal people in the modern day now is refer back to the ways that their ancestors used all these years ago. They currently look back at their history including some of the trauma of all the hardships that their people have endured throughout the years and then they try to revitalize those gifts that were given to them. The ability to speak the language of their ancestors is an important gift that reminds them of who they are and what their history was like. It is somewhat resembles a form of spiritual healing for them knowing that they can connect with their community and the earth in a similar manner to their ancestors.
One connection I can make with how the Aboriginal people use their language along with their ancestors’ history is similar to the way my religion looks back at their own history. In the Jewish religion, we spend some of our high holidays along with Friday nights and Saturday mornings reflecting on the lives of our ancestors and all of the hardships they had to endure by reading Hebrew, a language that has been spoken by our people for over thousands of years that still plays a prominent role in our lives.
When I learn about all of these similarities between the Aboriginal and Jewish people, I feel that I can make stronger connections to the Aboriginal people since we are not all that different. We both feel that the language spoken by our ancestors still play an important part of our lives and we can evolve by building on that foundation left by them.