Newcomer learns of a new old language

Image credit: Arul Lin on Unsplash

By Sid Narayanan

We met many new people when we moved to Canada – neighbours on our street, parents of other children at our children’s school, our colleagues at our first places of work, and so on.

Many of them went on to become good friends, and we met often and regularly. Matthew was one such friend. I thought we knew everything there was to know about each other, but I was wrong.

One day, he came to pick up his son who was at our place for a sleepover and was waiting in the driveway in his car while Jamie was getting his stuff together. I came out to chat with him. Noticing a book on the seat beside him, I leaned in to take a closer look at the title.

“I can’t lend this one to you,” said Matthew with a laugh. 

“And why not?” I countered. We both shared a love for reading and had exchanged many books over the years. 

“It’s in a language you don’t know,” he responded with a mischievous grin.

This referred to a conversation we’d had often about the many languages newcomers from India tend to be fluent in – their own, that of the state in which they were educated, along with possibly Hindi and of course, English – while most Canadians are bilingual at best with a knowledge of English and French.

I was intrigued, to say the least.

“Oho! So now we are in competition, are we?” I asked. “You’re learning a new language?”

“I am, but it’s not like how you think,” said Matthew, handing me the book.

I saw it was a book on the Ojibwe language. 

I had, of course, heard of the Ojibwe people, one of the many Indigenous people of North America, but didn’t know they had a distinct language of their own and in any case, why was Matthew reading it?

“Still, a new language, right? You’re not Indian, I mean Native Canadian, no, sorry, Indigenous...” I was stumbling over the correct way to describe Indigenous People.

“Jamie is taking so long, I may as well come in and tell you all about my interest in the book,” said Matthew, stepping out of his car.

And so it was over cups of South Indian filter coffee that I learnt that my friend Matthew had Ojibwe ancestry and hearing me speak of the many languages we know had sparked his interest in his own native tongue.

“It’s such a loss, not knowing one’s own language,” he reflected. “But we were raised in Toronto and never speak it at home. I’m trying to remedy that now. I’ll learn enough to pass on the knowledge to Jamie.”