As a species we’ve done our best to wipe each other out, wrecked whole continents of people because they weren’t like us. Didn’t look the same, didn’t think the same, didn’t speak our language.
And yet, despite our millennia of ignorance and arrogance and greed, we haven’t managed to destroy everything…not quite everything. Not yet.
Thanks to people like Katani Julian, a Mi’kmaq language teacher from Nova Scotia, indigenous languages live on.
In celebration of the UN’s International Year of Indigenous Languages, Julian took on the task of translating Paul McCartney’s Blackbird into Mi’kmaq feeling that lyrics like Take these broken wings, and learn to fly resonate with the indigenous experience in Canada. “It’s the type of gentle advice we get from our elders when we feel defeated, when we feel down.”
In the hope that we can learn to not break any more wings, here is Emma Stevens of Eskasoni, Nova Scotia singing Blackbird…
Katani has it right – connect, inspire, challenge…make a difference!
Beautiful!!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Connect, the easiest and hardest thing to do 🙂
LikeLike
Once again you’ve brought us something that we might never have heard otherwise. Thank you.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks, Brian.
Let me know if I start sounding like a crusader…don’t want to be incredibly boring 🙂
LikeLike
Ha! No chance of being boring!
LikeLiked by 1 person
What a lovely post, Aimer. Thank You for this. And what a wonderful Young Lady! She brought tears to my eyes. Sweet, sweet, sweet. ❤️❤️❤️
LikeLiked by 1 person