We are back from the Potawatomi Gathering 2007 which took place at Crandon, WI this year, and the 5th Annual Language Conference that was held at Carter, WI, just prior to to the Gathering of Potawatomi folk. Both events were well attended and much was learned by all who took part in the Language Conference, as well as many Potawatomi folk gaining a better perspective of themselves, as a nation and as individuals, within their respective reservation areas and tribes.
I would have liked to have heard more from the Language Teachers, especially from Billy Daniels, Jim Thunder, Peter Pemma, Mary Wensaut, Mary Daniels, Lillian Kelty, Marian Perrot, Donald Perrot, Lillian Rice, Cecelia Potts, Stewart King, and other fluent elders, instead of the speakers they did schedule.
Some of the beginning speakers are good, but come on now, they are not completely fluent, and why can’t they pay their dues first, as the original fluent speakers have done?
The Language Conference was good, but for me: I wanted to hear from other fluent speakers like me, and be able to talk shop with them, instead of always catering to the Language Learners, who are still doing just that, still learning!
I think the Language Leraners should still be listening to us, the fluent speakers, and what were the Ojibwa speakers doing there from Bay Mills College? Are they suddenly Potawatomi, or were they speaking Potawatomi? I think not!
Yeah, the Learners should leave the speaking to the fluent speakers and listen, learn more before they venture out to speak, because much of what they teach and try to share is wrong, not quite correct, thus making it wrong……
They may mean well, but meaning well and getting it right are two different things. Listen and learn well, so they can pronounce it right, before trying to teach others is what I say!
If anyone differs with that, tough luck!
I want my language taught right, by fluent speakers……
just me—-Don.
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