Did you know that I am working on a Mohegan language revitalization project for my people? No? Yes. I am. I didn’t plan on doing it, but circumstances landed it in my lap. I spent a lot of my time trying to think of things for it and ways to get my people to participate.
For a starter language project I took the old song Bella Ciao up. I realized, hey… this could work. I’ve been wanting to do a new song, and… I’ve always wanted to incorporate my people’s language. It’s perfect. I changed the lyrics and then translated the Bella Ciao part, the chorus, into Mohegan. I’ve been waiting to hear from the project’s language helper if I got it right and… I didn’t. But by luck I managed to do a translation that still worked. I wanted it to say Farewell my love (lover), but instead it’s Farewell love.