A discussion on the connection between Indigenous languages and the land on which they grew and developed. 

Join us for an exploratory conversation about language and land, as we seek what is lost when Indigenous language connections to place are overshadowed by colonization. What happens to our understanding of the places in which we live and travel when place names are anglicized? How does that interrupt our connection with the history of the area, the deeper understanding of its flora and fauna, the movement of the waterways, and the stewardship of the land? Distinguished panelists are speakers of Gaeilge and Anishinaabemowin and include the University of Milwaukee’s Margaret Noodin, and Lac Courte Oreille’s Michael Sullivan, and Réamonn Ó Ciaraín, Executive Director of Gael Linn and founder of our sister cultural center Aonach Mhaca in Armagh, Ireland.

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Margaret A. Noodin is an American poet and Anishinaabemowin language teacher. She is a Professor of English and American Indian Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. Noodin is the editor of ojibwe.net. She is the author of Bawaajimo: A Dialect of Dreams in Anishinaabe Language and Literature (2014) and Weweni: Poems in Anishinaabemowin and English (2015).

Mike/Migizi Sullivan is an Ojibwe Nation linguist and musician. The son of an Ojibwe mother and an Irish father, Mike heard his native language spoken by members of his grandmother’s generation. As he grew up, he realized that the language of his people was endangered. In graduate school, he assisted in putting together an online Ojibwe people’s dictionary. He served as a translator for the award-winning film “First Speakers,” which won a regional Emmy. He worked with Elder Eugene Stillday – one of the “main voices” of the Ojibwe people’s dictionary – on a children’s book that won the 2011 Library of Congress’ Minnesota Book of the Year award. By working with both the reservation’s native-speaking elders as well as its youngest children, Sullivan is already seeing progress in ensuring a robust future for the Ojibwe language. He is currently the Faculty Director of Native American Studies at the Lac Courte Oreilles.

Réamonn Ó Ciaraín was appointed CEO of Gael Linn in June 2022 after more than twenty-five years of working with Gael Linn to promote the Irish language. He is the chairperson of Aonach Mhacha, the Irish language social enterprise behind the building of an Irish language Cultural Centre in Armagh City which opened in March 2020. Réamonn has authored three books on Cúchulainn which were published by Gael Linn, as well articles in a variety of publications. He has toured the Midwest of the USA speaking about Cúchulainn, Ireland’s greatest mythological hero. Réamonn was born in Crossmaglen and now lives in Milford, Co. Armagh with his wife and two children.