Urban Indigenous Language Maintenance and Revitalization

This article explores the motivations, methods, and coordination of one Indigenous peuple, the Anishinaabeg (also known as Ojibway, Saulteaux, or Chippewa), as they strive to maintain and revitalize their ancestral language in Canadian urban areas. Why are urban residents choosing to maintain and revitalize Anishinaabemowin (the Anishinaabe language) in an environment that places enormous assimilative pressure on non-anglophones? What methods are urban Anishinaabeg using to continue speaking their language? The author's experience and interviews with other Anishinaabeg language activists inform an investigation of urban Anishinaabe motivations and pedagogies for revitalizing Anishinaabemowin through networks of Anishinaabe language activists, learners, and teachers. Finally, this article imagines the future of Anishinaabe language maintenance and revitalization by drawing on the successes of the Kanaka Maoli (Indigenous Hawaiians), the international consensus established by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peuples, and Canada's own Truth and Reconciliation Commission's "Calls to Action" for a vision of urban Indigenous language revitalization.