Reimagining the Role of ‘Community Health Nurse’
Reimagined role-name in Biigtigong’s dialect of Nishnaabemwin:
- Wiijhidiiwaadziikaan Gaa-noojmohwed
Morphemes (building blocks of each word):
- Wiijhidiiwaadziikaan ~ “community”
- Wiij ~ “with, accompany”
- h ~ “cause someone to be or to act”
- idi(i) ~ [reciprocal], “to/with/for each other”
- (w)aad ~ “way of being or life, character, nature”
- zi(i) ~ “someone is in a state or condition”
- kaan ~ “something made”
- Gaa-noojmohwed ~ “nurse”
- Gaa-…d ~ “someone who…”
- noojmo ~ “someone recovers from an illness”, “someone is healing-up”, “someone is being cured”
- h ~ “cause someone to be or to act”
- we ~ “someone acts (on an unspecified animate being)”
A translation of the morphemes:
- (someone-who-is-associated-with-a-)community healer-of-people
A plainer, more free-form English translation:
- community healer
A formal-English translation:
- Community Nurse
Montano, J. P., & Michano, A. R. “Reimagining Health Centre Roles in Biigtigong Nishnaabemwin” biigtigong.com. Biigtigong Nishnaabeg, 14 Jul 2017. Web.