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Two Languages In Mind But Just One In The Heart Analysis

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“Two Languages in Mind, but Just One in the Heart” by Louise Edrich Summary #1

The following article being summarized “Two Languages in Mind, but Just One in the Heart” by Louise Edrich was published in in the New York Times in 2000. This article chronicles the Ojibwe language and the correlation to Edrich’s heart. Edrich’s first language is English as she grew up off reservation and was nowhere near places such as Turtle Mountain in North Dakota, Canada, Minnesota, and Wisconsin where Ojibwe is spoken.

Edrich first remembered Ojibwe through memories of her maternal grandfather, Patrick Gourneau who would mainly use them in the families prayers. She then believed that Ojibwe was only used for religious purposes. When Edrich first began to to study Ojibwe she was living in New Hampshire where no one spoke it. Therefore, she had to use language tapes by Basil Johnson which helped her learn polite phrases. After Edrich moved back to the Midwest, she connected with a teacher of the language that goes by the American name of Jim Clark or Naawi-giizis. The importance of human to human interaction while learning Ojibwe was very important for Edrich. While interacting with Naawi-giizis, she began to …show more content…

Edrich uses an analogy between the plague and the English language to portray her point that the Europeans wanted to make the native people of North America like themselves which means speaking English. The way English would be implemented would be through the Bureau of Indian Affairs which would forbid the use of native languages such as Ojibwe in attempts to break the mold of the native people. The schools set up by the bureau would physically beat and ridicule those who spoke their native language. However, the language would live on with people over the age of

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