Star Wars: A New Hope was rereleased on August 8th in Ojibway in Winnipeg and marks the second time the 1977 blockbuster has been released in an Indigenous language. 

With the initial release of A New Hope in 1977, Star Wars revitalized the sci-fi genre and revolutionized film merchandising, marketing, special effects, and pop culture. The hit film grew into the immensely popular franchise we know today, which in 2021 was estimated to have grossed approximately $68 billion globally. A new release of the film, dubbed in Ojibway, was produced in collaboration between Lucasfilm, Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN), the University of Manitoba, and the Dakota Ojibway Tribal Council. 

The Ojibway language is a member of the Algonquin language family and one of Canada’s most popularly spoken Indigenous languagesThe traditional homeland of the Ojibway people is the Great Lakes region. A 2021 census data indicates 25,440 Canadians speak a dialect of Ojibway, primarily concentrated in Manitoba and Ontario.

Despite the relatively high number of Ojibway speakers compared with other Indigenous languages spoken in Canada, UNESCO still considers Ojibway to be an endangered language. 

A language is considered to be endangered when children no longer learn it as a mother tongue, and may eventually become extinct as the last generation of speakers dies, taking with them not only the words themselves but also the knowledge and traditions that are passed through the language. 

It is estimated that approximately 3,000 languages are considered endangered globally. In Canada, around 75 percent of all living Indigenous languages are endangered. The current rate of language loss means that approximately 9 are lost per year, or one every 40 days. This rate is slated to increase throughout the century, with many estimates suggesting that half of the world’s 7,000 languages could be extinct by the end of the century.

Colonization is a large contributing factor to language loss around the world. In Canada in particular, colonial institutions and policies were designed specifically to eliminate Indigenous language, culture, and history through tactics of forced assimilation. This included children being barred from both learning and speaking their mother tongue. 

In the modern era, the internet is increasingly an important consideration as a factor for language extinction. The internet is becoming necessary to participate in pop culture, commerce, and education, despite being catered mostly to English speakers – nearly 60 percent of internet content is in English, making accessing certain content difficult for non-English speakers, much less for speakers of endangered languages. According to the UN, just 500 of the world’s approximately 7,000 languages are used online (with Google searches supporting just 348). While not everyone around the globe has internet access, those who have it and speak an endangered language are forced to interact with content in a language different from their native tongue.

Projects such as the Ojibway dub of A New Hope are islands of refuge in the sea of English-only content, as they break down language barriers that previously alienated people from participating and interacting with significant pop culture moments such as Star Wars. 

While the internet has some negative implications for language endangerment, its permanence and accessibility from around the globe provide an incredible opportunity for language preservation unique to our era. The diverse forms that digital media can take means that language preservation does not just have to occur as a written archival – it can take the form of music, movies, and interactive content, allowing voices and stories to come to life through language, and continue to be interacted with for years to come.