Rochelle and Dené introduce how Anishinaabemowin expresses colors through word parts and initials in particular. Recording in person for the first time and learning more about podcasting with support from the Indigenous Screen Office.

Colour initials include

miskw- red in miskwaa (inanimate) / miskozi (animate),

waabishk- white in waabishkaa/waabishkizi,

makadew- black in makadewaa/makadewizi.

They discuss ways to practice remembering object animacy through games. They also explore regional variation for blue/green and purple and how -aande/-aanzo as color finals can be used to create more specific colour words.

Highlighted in this episode is the Beam Paints’ color-naming project https://youtu.be/GQ6gubeUR4o?si=Bp3WUKEtJskO-62j

https://www.beampaints.com/

Turning Nouns into Verbs with the Anishinaabemowin Final -ike

Rochelle and Dené reconnect after the summer. With classes and community programs starting up for the fall, they encourage teachers and learners to keep going, support others, engage on Facebook, and spend time with speakers.

The episode’s focus is the verb final “-ike,” which turns nouns into VAI verbs. -ike means to make/produce/gather/harvest and can expand new learner vocabulary because you can add it to nouns that learners may already know (e.g. making bread, making coffee/ tea, harvesting rice/berries and even fish).

Rochelle and Dené demonstrate how to find “-ike” forms using the Ojibwe People’s Dictionary advanced search, and share their own understanding of the final and some commonly used -ike verbs.

To review the Ojibwe People’s Dictionary's -ike listing check out https://ojibwe.lib.umn.edu/word-part/ke-final 

Morphology, Adult Immersion, and Intergenerational Transmission

In this, the third episode of the interview series with Alan Corbiere, Alan discusses how Anishinaabemowin’s descriptiveness comes from morphology, but the language is still often taught word-for-word. He also describes some hands-on morpheme-ordering activities inspired by Mohawk educator Brian Maracle, which ARP developed to help learners construct words.

Alan also summarizes Brian Maracle’s language revitalization reflections:  prioritize local control by learners rather than institutions, use a “root word method” to teach thinking like speakers, and focus on young adults who become fluent, form families, and can reestablish intergenerational transmission.

The hosts reflect on learning from the efforts of other Indigenous language communities, taking risks and trying new things as learners and teachers, the limits of school-based programs, the need for community platforms to highlight/encourage learners and the importance of collective effort to create change and revitalize our language. 

Learning Moments, Corrections, and Summer Language Inspiration Rochelle and Dené emphasize they are not authorities, they share a few corrections from previous episodes and announce their podcast was selected as one of 16 projects in the Indigenous Screen Office podcasting program.

Jojo Kewayosh-Deleary Miss Potawatomi ⁠https://www.instagram.com/miss.potawatomi.2526/

Esbikenh from ⁠https://www.youtube.com/@barbara_nolan

Miigwanaabiikwe (Jess) from The Language (podcast) ⁠https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-language/id1626000171

Gaagige Ganawendamaang Anishinaabemowin ⁠https://gaagige.ca

Quizlet - https://tinyurl.com/2h29e56z 

Aaniin Gaa-izhiseyan? will be available online https://www.wakingupojibwe.ca/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Digital-Edition-Aaniin-Gaa-izhiseyan-What-Happened-to-You.pdf through https://www.wakingupojibwe.ca/

Talking Gookom's Language (book) by Patricia M. Ningewance Book Gookom’s Language: Learning Ojibwe - Mazinaate

Rochelle held up was made by Ogimaagwanebiik (Nancy Jones) with OOG https://ojibwemotaadidaa.weebly.com/

In this episode Dené and Rochelle explore medials—middle word parts that can be hard for English speakers to recognize—and discuss how medials create more specific, “elegant” expressions. They outline some categories including: classifiers, incorporated nouns, environmental medials. They focus on -abiig- (string-like), sharing a clip from an interview with Alan Corbiere and give practical examples involving yarn, cords and cables, and even body parts.

Continuing the discussion of Anishinaabemowin finals this episode focuses on the final -aapi, used for many kinds of laughing. Guest Co-hosts Kay and Norman introduce us to a variety of words, such as laughing happily, bursting out laughing, giggling, falling over laughing, and farting from laughing. Dené and Rochelle discuss when they use these words and encourage everyone to do some laughing this week and try out a new -aapi word.

Rochelle recorded at https://www.ziibiinglab.org/