Ininímotán Language Nest Begins May 6 at St John’s Library

Tánsi kákinaw!

If you, like me, have wanted to learn how to speak Ininew (swampy cree, n-dialect) for a long time but haven't had the community of speakers to do it, this opportunity is for you!

You're invited to join me for ININÍMOTÁN LANGUAGE NEST at St John's Library on Mondays starting May 6 @ 6pm! We will be doing basic introduction to the Ininew langauge for the first 6 weeks, learning together from a pre-recorded audio.

There are also Indigenous resources at this branch we can explore beyond the ones we will share in our group. I can't wait to form a community of speakers to help the Ininew language thrive that includes learners of all abilities and ages!

So the plan is to use the resource ININÍMOTÁN: Becoming A Successful Cree Eavesdropper that includes audio and handouts and adapt them into weekly lessons for beginners. We will also share apps, videos and websites each week and they will all be chronicled on the Ininimotan resource page I have created for all of us to us. This resource will also begin to see the audio recordings we share in class to appear. Thank you to my partner Gradce for helping convert the CD into digital audio files for us to share in small, easy to understand pieces! We will work for 6 weeks, take a 1 week break and then do another 6 weeks continuing our lessons.

If you are one of the people who came to the Ininimotan last year, the first 6 weeks will be the same content - so you are free to come for a refresher (please do!) or you are welcome to join us in mid June to continue learning where we left off last year.

Right now, this is an entirely volunteer run endeavour on my end, and the library is graciously sharing their space. That means there is no budget unfortunately to compensate anyone for coming - however that may change in the future. If you are an organization or a person who wants to support this work, any contributed dollars would go towards printing resources each week and providing honourarium to language speakers.

Last thing to mention, I am in talks with the awesome librarians at St John’s to make this more of an embedded program within the City of Winnipeg so there will be more support for the promotion and other elements of future language nests!