"In the Old Language": A Glossary of Ojibwe Words, Phrases, and Sentences in Louise Erdrich’s Novels

Slowly the language has crept into my writing, replacing a word here, a concept there, beginning to carry weight. The constant murmur of the pines, her beloved music, now became comprehensible to her in the same way that flows of Ojibwe language first began to make sense—a word here, a word there, a few connections, then the shape of ideas. It’s amazing that we even have Ojibwe speakers in this century. I get very troubled when I talk about the language. I really do have such regard for it. It’s a very deep, earthy, descriptive, gnarled language. It’s a great language. It’s not simple. It’s intellectually complex, and it’s so far beyond what I could ever hope to achieve in understanding. It’s so tied to the landscape. My love for the language far exceeds my ability to speak it. I just keep trying. In Love Medicine, Lulu Nanapush, who spent her formative years at a boarding school speaking only English, tells about the time Moses Pillager talked to Nanapush: “One summer long ago, when I was a little girl, he came to Nanapush and the two sat beneath the arbor, talking only in the old language.” Much later, as a young woman, Lulu visits Moses on his cat-ridden island and sleeps with him. She wakes up beside Moses to discover that he is talking in a language that she scarcely recognizes: “I woke to find him speaking in the old language, using words that few remember, forgotten, lost to people who live in town or dress in clothes” (LM 81)