Aanii! Jackson Fenner ndizhinikaaz. Mishiikenh ndoodem. Aamjiwnaang First Nation ndibendaagoz. Nishnaabe indaw.
My name is Jackson Fenner. I’m a student studying Climate & Meteorology and minoring in Native American Studies. I’m a member of Aamjiwnaang First Nation and have lived in the Great Lakes area and around the States my whole life. Before coming to the University of Michigan, I served in the U.S. Air Force for 6 years. One of my reasons for coming here to study was to take Ojibwe (Anishinaabemowin) and be closer to my family. My first semester here, I had a time conflict which disallowed me to take the course. Fortunately, I learned of a transcription and language learning opportunity through the Native American Student Association and Library Outreach, which would allow me to prioritize Ojibwe study supplemental to my engineering coursework. I’m grateful to contribute to this project and it has solidified my desire to focus my studies and career by focusing on both engineering and language study.
Project Description
This project has come about as part of the UM Library’s Territorial Acknowledgement Working Group, who has investigated multiple tangible actions the University is able to accomplish to honor the original stewards of this land, the Anishnaabeg and Wyandot peoples, whose ‘land grant’ allows for this University’s existence. One of these action items is to become leaders in Indigenous Knowledge sharing, which includes this project to transcribe/caption Ojibwe language lessons to make them available online through the UM Library via Alma Digital. These language materials were created by Basil Johnston, a prominent Anishnaabe scholar, whose work continues to educate native people long past he walked on.
In order to host these materials online, they must be transcribed and captioned to comply with ADA requirements. The initial goal was to complete all 50 Beginner Ojibwe language lessons, however that scope became more limited as the logistics of the project were examined. To be able to start captioning in the first place, we had to research and set into place the needed infrastructure. These elements included identifying the transcription software, file formats, captioning style guides, and so on. Additionally we had to identify the writing system (orthography) to use since Anishinaabemowin doesn’t have a set writing system. Readers unfamiliar with the Ojibwe language should note that it is a primarily spoken language: historically, there is no “set” writing system. This causes discrepancies when attempting to caption/transcribe the language as there is no single dictionary one can go to for clarity. Basil Johnston developed his own orthography, which his printed materials are written in; however, due to the project’s audience, we thought it best to transcribe in the more widely used Double Vowel Orthography, which is the de facto standard using English letters and used by tribes in the U.S. and Canada.
During this period of project organization, my project leader, Ariel Ojibway, connected me with library staff and other individuals around the University to aid in the planning. We met first with the Ojibwe language instruction team, Alphonse Pitawanakwat and Kayla Gonyon, who provided us with language learning materials, information on the Double Vowel Orthography, and more background on the spectrum of written and spoken Ojibwe language. They helped explain the dialectical differences between Western and Eastern Ojibwe, which would come up throughout the transcription process.
After this, we met with Bryan Birchmeier, an Accessibility Services Librarian, who gave much needed advice on the various transcription software, style guides and best practices, and standard transcription file formats. The caption files themselves are also able to distinguish between languages, so we had to find the specific International Organization for Standardization (ISO) language code for Eastern Ojibwe to make sure that the language was encoded properly. Ultimately, the pipeline was to convert the audio files into video files, transcribe using Adobe Premiere Pro, generate a caption file from the Adobe transcript, and then convert that caption file into another format using another program called SubtitleEdit.
Once these initial roadblocks were removed, the transcription was able to begin in earnest! Basil Johnston’s Written Beginner Course Outline was very helpful working through the lessons, and switching from Johnston’s orthography to the double vowel was pretty straightforward. Initially, I had created a keyboard layout for the double vowel system using Keyman to help familiarize myself with the sounds as well as speed up typing repeated letters. Typing “Aanii” [Hello] many many times in a row is nicer with three keystrokes versus six with a standard QWERTY layout. The layout was based on my experience with the 2-set Korean keyboard which has consonants on the left side and vowels on the right. This keyboard worked nicely, but switching between different devices led me to use the QWERTY keyboard layout most of the time.
As for the transcription itself, some of the phrases that took time to identify were in English. This is because Johnston was from Canada and used some words more common in his area, rather than American English. An example of this is the term “pelliasse” which I’ve come to learn means a “straw mattress,” originating from French.
Aside from the English transcription hiccups, the Anishnaabemowin itself was time consuming. Although the written material was helpful for the repeated phrases in the lessons, there were many words and phrases that did not appear in the outline. As a learner myself, parsing these new words was challenging. This is because I was moving between different dictionaries which contained different spellings for the same root words, while focusing on maintaining the dialect of Johnston himself. Between different Nishnaabemowin dialects, vowels can be added/dropped and different consonants are used (b/p and d/t) which adds difficulty in understanding the root word and meaning itself while balancing the unique identity of Johnston’s speech.
In balancing the transcription’s spelling and preserving Johnston’s pronunciation, we reached out to Christine Zablowski, an accessibility lead with the University Library. She advised us to use the speech verbatim, as to not change the speech of the speaker. In our terms for this project, that meant transcribing the words as I heard them, not matching spellings to dictionaries or resources. At this point, I began using Johnston’s Anishnaube Thesaurus, which included some of the words/phrases I was struggling with. As for words not found in any of the online resources, I transcribed what I heard and consulted with the language team at the University.
At the end of the journey described above, we were able to get some of the intended goals accomplished. The transcription and captioning infrastructure was set in place, and one lesson has been transcribed and captioned. The second lesson is in its last stages of transcription before captioning. The finished first lesson was provided to the Ojibwe language team to use as supplemental material in the course. Moving forward, the rest of the tapes must be transcribed and captioned. The biggest obstacle to this is that there isn’t a tool to automatically transcribe Ojibwe, which would require substantial development. And even with automatically generated Ojibwe captions, most of the words would need to be changed by hand as many of the words spoken in the tape are not seen in the various online Ojibwe dictionaries in the same form they are spoken. For now, this is a project requiring a hands-on approach (i.e. a human transcriber), and more hands to get this transcribed is necessary.
Initiatives like this project are good ways for the University to honor its land acknowledgment and promise to the original peoples of this area. The institution is made up of separate teams and groups of people, and the U-M Library is one of the groups making good strides in that respect. Other groups, such as the Board of Regents, could also take strides to support Native students.
Myself and relatives who are Michigan residents and members of Anishnaabe First Nations are ineligible for the Michigan Indian Tuition Waiver despite being the exact same group of peoples mentioned in the land acknowledgement. This is because the State of Michigan claims the Federal government does not recognize First Nations, despite the Jay Treaty allowing for First Nations members to reside in the United States. The University itself could bridge this gap by electing to provide a tuition waiver for eligible First Nations Students. Our people were artificially separated by the imposed border, and the University, in a sense, perpetuates this by not providing a Tuition Waiver for First Nations students. In the past, this Waiver has been given to First Nations students, and it is time for the University to elect to offer it again.
From working on this project, I was able to connect with great resources (people and materials, alike) and am empowered to continue my Nishnaabemwin learning journey. Directly from this work, I was able to attend the Anishinaabemowin-Teg Language Conference in London, Ontario. There, I met many speakers and learners alike. I learned of an immersive language opportunity this Summer, which I’ve been accepted into and will attend. Moving forward, I know my career will have to include, in some part, language work. There’s a common refrain in Native communities of us having to “walk in two worlds,” where we have the “Western” learning and more traditional/cultural ways of doing things. I’ve come to understand this more deeply and internalized it as part of working on this project.
I’d been wanting to learn my whole life, and am extremely grateful for the University of Michigan Library and Ariel Ojibway for giving me the opportunity to keep my feet in both worlds.