September 4, 2022
Holding a wooden flute, Larry Martin stood during a recent Mass and welcomed the congregation to join the responsorial psalm. He began: “Aw ge-chi-twaaa-wen-daa-go-zid, Gi-gi-zhe-ma-ni-doo-mi-nann.”
The language was Ojibwe, and the words translated to “Our God is one who is glorious,” taken from Psalm 19.
Martin, a 79-year-old director emeritus of American Indian Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire, worked with another language expert to convert the English to Ojibwe, the traditional language of many of the American Indian Catholics who worship at Gichitwaa Kateri in south Minneapolis, Martin’s parish.
Source: Parishioners reclaim Ojibwe language through hymn translation