Category Archives: Launches and Public Events

Anna Luisa Daigneault, Digital Resources, Endangered Language Activism, Events, Get Involved, Gregory D. S. Anderson, Language Documentation, Launches and Public Events, Living Dictionaries, Media and Publicity, Projects, Support Endangered Languages

New article about Living Dictionaries in “Dictionaries Journal (Special Issue: Indigenous Lexicography)”

We are pleased to announce that we have published a new article entitled “Living Dictionaries: A Platform for Indigenous and Under-Resourced Languages” in the latest issue of Dictionaries, a journal published by the Dictionary Society of North America. Special thanks to the journal editors Christine Schreyer, Mark Turin and M. Lynne Murphy for their hard work. Here is the announcement from the publisher, below.

 

The Dictionary Society of North America is pleased to announce publication of Dictionaries 44:2, a special issue on Indigenous Lexicography guest-edited by Christine Schreyer, Mark Turin and M. Lynne Murphy. Read it online at Project MUSE, where, thanks in part to support from the University of British Columbia, it’s available open-access!

Dictionaries 44.2 (2023)

Special Issue: Indigenous Lexicography

Table of Contents

Editorial

M. Lynne Murphy

 

Indigenous Lexicography: An Introduction

Christine Schreyer and Mark Turin

 

The Evolution of Inuktut Dictionary-Making: From Historical Documentation to Inuit Authorship and Collaborations

Kumiko Murasugi and Donna Patrick

 

How a Dictionary Became an Archive: Community Language Reclamation Using the Mukurtu Content Management System

Erin Debenport, Mishuana Goeman, Maria Montenegro, and Michael Wynne

 

Living Dictionaries: A Platform for Indigenous and Under-Resourced Languages

Anna Luisa Daigneault and Gregory D. S. Anderson

 

Modern Wendat Lexicography: Using XML to Reflect the Grammar and Lexicon of an Iroquoian Language

Megan Lukaniec and Martin Holmes

 

The Upper Nicola Nsyilxcn Talking Dictionary Project: Community-Driven Revitalization Lexicography within an Academic Context

John Lyon, k̓ʷak̓ʷíslaʔqn Justine Manuel, and xʷəstalqs Kathleen Michel

 

nêhiyawi-pîkiskwêwina maskwacîsihk: Spoken Dictionary of Maskwacîs Cree

Antti Arppe, Atticus G. Harrigan, Katherine Schmirler, Daniel Dacanay, and Rose Makinaw

 

Designing Corpus-Creation Tools for Language Revitalization

Darren Flavelle and Jordan Lachler

 

An Open-Access Toolkit for Collaborative, Community-Informed Dictionaries

Bailey Trotter, Christine Schreyer, and Mark Turin

 

Creating the Passamaquoddy-Wolastoqey Dictionary: A Personal Reflection on Fifty Years of Lexicography

Robert M. Leavitt

 

The Witsuwit’en–English Dictionary Project

Sharon Hargus

 

Thematic Picture Dictionaries and Other Visual Resources for Costa Rican Indigenous Languages: Beyond Bilingual Equivalencies

Carlos Sánchez Avendaño and Henry Angulo-Jiménez

 

BOOK REVIEWS

Revitalization Lexicography: The Making of a New Tunica Dictionary by Patricia Anderson (book review).

 

Bailey Trotter

Endangered Language Activism, Language Documentation, Launches and Public Events, Living Dictionaries, Media and Publicity, Projects, Support Endangered Languages

The Brezhoneg Living Dictionary is now available!

On behalf of the Living Tongues Institute, it has been our pleasure to collaborate with cultural non-profit organization Breizh Amerika on the creation of the new Brezhoneg Living Dictionary.

A searchable, mobile-friendly tool containing 300+ entries in Brezhoneg with accompanying audio recordings, and translations into English and French, this project will help create visibility and access to the language across the Breton diaspora in Europe and North America.

Brezhoneg Living Dictionary in the press

On a personal note, this project makes me particularly proud, because my great-grandfather Joseph-Marie Gallon was a fluent Breton speaker. An immigrant from northern France to Canada in the early 20th century, he often sang and performed in his mother tongue. Although he never transmitted the language to his children, who grew up speaking French and English, his daughter Cécile Gallon (my grandmother) lovingly recalled him speaking in Breton and always felt a connection to the language. My memory of her affection for it stays with me until this day.

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Au nom de l’Institut Living Tongues, nous avons eu le plaisir de collaborer avec Breizh Amerika à la création du Dictionnaire vivant brezhoneg. Cet outil, qui est consultable et adapté aux téléphones portables, contient plus de 300 entrées en brezhoneg, accompagnées d’enregistrements audio et de traductions en anglais et en français. Ce projet contribuera à la visibilité et à l’accès à la langue au sein de la diaspora bretonne en Europe et en Amérique du Nord.

D’un point de vue personnel, ce projet me rend particulièrement fière, car mon arrière-grand-père Joseph-Marie Gallon parlait couramment le breton. Un immigré du nord de la France au Canada au début du 20e siècle, il chantait et jouait souvent dans sa langue maternelle. Bien qu’il n’ait jamais transmis la langue à ses enfants, qui ont grandi en parlant le français et l’anglais, sa fille Cécile Gallon (ma grand-mère) se souvenait affectueusement qu’il parlait en breton, et elle a toujours ressenti un lien avec la langue. Le souvenir de sa joie reste gravé dans ma mémoire jusqu’à aujourd’hui.

– Anna Luisa Daigneault
Program Director
Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages
Digital Resources, Endangered Language Activism, Language Documentation, Launches and Public Events, Living Dictionaries, Media and Publicity, Projects

Living Tongues partners with 7000 Languages to create companion dictionaries for online courses

Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages is pleased to partner with 7000 Languages to help languages survive for generations to come. The mission of Living Tongues Institute is to document threatened languages as well as support speakers who are safeguarding their languages from extinction through activism, education, and technology.

With these goals in mind, the researchers at Living Tongues created the Living Dictionaries platform where online dictionaries can be easily created and shared. Living Dictionaries are collaborative multimedia web tools that are ideal for maintaining indigenous as well as diaspora languages.

For communities who request them, Living Dictionaries will serve as companion dictionaries to language-learning courses created by 7000 Languages. These online dictionaries are never out-of-print, infinitely expandable resources that are freely accessible from exploration and browsing.

Going well beyond a static print dictionary, Living Dictionaries combine language data with digital audio recordings of speakers and other multimedia. Living Dictionaries address the urgent need to provide comprehensive, discoverable tech tools for community activists and linguists engaged in grassroots conservation efforts and revitalization programs around the world.

Living Tongues partnership with 7000 Languages 1

Living Tongues partnership with 7000 Languages 2

Partnerships between nonprofits like us can really make an impact. Both of our organizations are very attuned to the needs and suggestions of the communities we work with, so we make sure that every resource we put out really includes community involvement at every step.

Stay tuned for the first Living Dictionary coming out of this collaboration later this summer.

Digital Resources, Endangered Language Activism, Language Documentation, Launches and Public Events, Living Dictionaries, Projects

Collaboration with the Skarure Woccon to develop the first-ever Woccon Living Dictionary

Woccon is a dormant Eastern Siouan language that is currently being revived by the Cape Fear Band of the Skarure and Woccon Indians (who reside in the Cape Fear coastal region of North Carolina, USA). They are a tribal nation with a long, rich history concentrated in and around Brunswick, Bladen, Columbus and Pender Counties of Cape Fear. Their tribe is also known by the name “Skarure Woccon of the Cape Fear.”

The Woccon language closely resembled Catawba, and was considered one of two Catawban languages, which are part of the Siouan language family. Woccon itself is attested only in a vocabulary of approximately 140 words, originally published in John Lawson’s “A new voyage to Carolina” in 1709.

At Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages, we have been working closely with Chief Lovell Eagle Elk and Teneia Blue Feather of the Skakure Woccon nation to help bring awareness to the Woccon language and to upload these words to create the first-ever Woccon Living Dictionary. Linguistic anthropologist Anna Luisa Daigneault and linguist Gregory D. S. Anderson from Living Tongues Institute have both helped lead efforts to process data and obtain all available archival materials that can inform this work. Our involvement with the tribe is listed on their website. 

Screenshot from the Woccon Living Dictionary

The next phase of work will include working with Siouan linguistics specialists to determine the correct pronunciation of the Woccon terms. In October 2021, we obtained drafts of unpublished, in-depth linguistic analysis on Catawba from the Smithsonian that will help inform future work on Woccon because it is a closely related language.

Participants at the 2021 Skarure Woccon Harvest Festival

We live in a pivotal time for language documentation and language revitalization, and most people in the broader American public have no idea what’s at stake when indigenous languages are lost, and what it takes to revive them. Many dedicated activists (including local indigenous cultural experts, students, researchers, linguists and anthropologists) work tirelessly to collect cultural data that can be used as a basis for creating language revival programs for local Native American communities. 

Why is this work part of an urgent public conversation? Languages transmit centuries of accumulated wisdom related to human adaptation and survival. They contain vital information related to land management, subsistence patterns, kinship and social relationships, local customs, cosmology and much more. Every language represents a unique way of interpreting and conveying the human experience in a specific cultural and environmental context. It is important for all Americans to welcome the views and expressions of the indigenous people who were the first to inhabit this land we all live on today.  

Researchers from Living Tongues and members of the Skarure Woccon nation also collaborated during the online event “Stories of Endangered Language Activism” sponsored by PEN America.

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Read more:
Lawson, John, 1709. “A vocabulary of Woccon” in A New Voyage to Carolina; Containing the Exact Description and Natural History of That Country: Together with the Present State Thereof. And a Journal of a Thousand Miles, Travel’d Thro’ Several Nations of Indians. Giving a Particular Account of Their Customs, Manners, &c. View online.

Carter, R. 1980. The Woccon Language of North Carolina: Its Genetic Affiliations and Historical Significance

Rudes, B.A., 2000. Resurrecting coastal Catawban: The reconstituted phonology and morphology of the Woccon language. Southern Journal of Linguistics 24: 228-244.

  1. Woccon Living Dictionary. Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages. https://livingdictionaries.app/woccon