While we’re all in isolation, we’re going to try to post one video a day from the existing teaching libraries of Sol and some of his Creecher friends. Like Sasquatch himself, Solomon Ratt has experience with self isolation. Who better to help out with online Cree lessons for remote learning?
Today (day four) we’ve got some really useful – maybe even essential – phrases for families at home. Our inspiration came from Charlie Venne’s “Simple Commands in Woodlands Cree” (Charlie has also agreed to let us share some of his videos). As the original webmaster for Gift of Language and Culture, Charlie is an experienced presenter of online teaching resources (and a fluent th-dialect speaker). Find more of Charlie’s work at FirstNationsStories.com
Sol and I expanded his list to include:
- What we say to children (or anyone, really)
- What parents (or caregivers) say to children
- What children say (Things kids are gonna be saying anyway, so they may as well learn to say them in Cree)
- Click the link to download a pdf version of these EssentialPhrases – you might like to have it as you read along!
- Scroll down for video (it’s on a white background, so it looks blank, but it’s not!)
Of course, the list is endless, and Sol no sooner got the list recorded than somebody thought of more. Like this really important one (that we all need from time to time): namôya niya! It wasn’t me!
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(About Sol’s shirt: https://creeliteracy.org/2020/03/17/awas-go-away-most-dialects/)
6 Responses
I would like to recieve the plains cree video and language. I use in my classroom with my students.
Please send my poster that have cree as we say through out the day . I have been putting up the cree 101 words in my class.
Thanks, Sheila – there was an error in the first post, but it’s fixed now.
You’re always welcome to download material from this site and reprint it for classroom use.
I’ve also edited the list into a PDF printable, so you can print (for reference) or read along.
this is amazing keep it up thanks for the help !!!!
So much gratitude for these posts during this time. I don’t know if you take any requests but I would so love to learn a simple prayer to say when doing my short three times a day medicine ceremony (with cedar) at this very intense time! kinanaskomitin!
I’m so glad you’re finding them helpful. If you type the word “prayer” into the search box, you will find several you might like. This one looks like a good fit: https://creeliteracy.org/2018/08/10/a-prayer-to-the-four-directions-solomon-ratt-th-dialect-y-dialect/
Thank you sooooo much! This is perfect! I have already started to learn it and use it in my prayers with the medicines. It will be a while before I can do it all in nêhiyawêwin but I will persevere. I am using the ‘y’ dialect even though I am muskegowuk because it seems to be the one that my ear is most attuned to. Thanks again. <3