Category Archives: Media and Publicity

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.

——
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
Donate Now, Endangered Language Activism, Events, Get Involved, Living Dictionaries, Media and Publicity, Support Endangered Languages, Who We Are

✍️ RSVP for the Living Tongues Online Gala on Dec 9, 2023

Living Tongues gala flyer 2023

Join the researchers of Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages for our 2nd Annual Online Gala, where we present some of our highlights and innovations from 2023!

When: Saturday, Dec 9, 2023
Time: 01:00 PM – 02:30 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Where: Zoom online meeting

Register in advance for this meeting

2023 was a huge year for us. During this event, our researchers from around the world will share news about our language documentation projects, updates regarding the Living Dictionaries online platform, as well as our new research findings, publications and awards.

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Want to support our work? Please visit: https://livingtongues.org/how-to-help/support/

Language Documentation, Living Dictionaries, Media and Publicity, Projects, Support Endangered Languages

Living Dictionaries: Tutorials and New Features

Every Living Dictionary helps increase the visibility of an under-represented language. To all the citizen-linguists and community activists currently creating dictionaries on our platform, we thank you for your hard work! By adding entries to your Living Dictionary, you are making a difference for the future of a language.

NEWS

We are pleased to report that there are over 400 Living Dictionaries currently being developed on our platform. Around half of them are currently available to browse on our homepage, and around half are in private mode because they are under construction or for community use only. Our platform now contains over 143,000 words and phrases, with 40,000 entries being added in the last year alone! Congratulations to everyone expanding their Living Dictionaries around the world.

Our core team has been working hard behind the scenes to launch many new features that people have requested during our workshops. Here are some new changes on the platform.

TUTORIALS

We have short tutorials available in English and Spanish. Please visit our Tutorials page.

We also have many recordings of our Zoom workshops and conference presentations available on our YouTube channel.

SETTINGS

Visit the “Settings” tab in the left sidebar of your Living Dictionary to change the configuration of your project. You can add more glossing languages, alternate names, secondary map coordinates and more. The “Settings” page is continually being improved, and is only available to dictionary managers. You must be logged in to make any changes.

CONTRIBUTORS

As many of you already know, Living Dictionaries are excellent for remote collaboration. Visit the “Contributors” tab in the left sidebar of your Living Dictionary to invite more dictionary managers to work with you. At the bottom of that page, you can now also customize the “How to Cite” data field so that all the authors of a dictionary can be correctly recognized.

EXPORT & PRINT

  • You can now export a spreadsheet as well as download the multimedia files from your Living Dictionary, for use offline. Look in the left sidebar and click on the “Export” tab, then select the types of files you want to download.

  • You can print your Living Dictionary. Click on the new “Print” button near the top right of the screen on the entries page. This will allow you to print a physical copy or a PDF of your current view of entries, meaning you can choose to print a filtered subset of entries if desired.

  • Exporting and printing are only available to dictionary managers like yourselves. You must be logged into your account to see these features. If you want members of the public to be able to print out your dictionary, go to the “Settings” tab in the left side bar and activate “Allow Viewers to Print Dictionary“. It is unchecked by default, so no one can print out your dictionary without you activating that functionality.

SEMANTIC DOMAINS

We have made important changes to two of the semantic categories:
– “Physical Actions and States” is now “Physical Actions”
– “States” is now “States and Characteristics” so that people can tag attributes better. Please review the contents of your Living Dictionary to see if these tags are being used correctly!

INTERFACE LANGUAGES

The platform’s language of functionality can be changed seamlessly, anytime. Click on the top right “Language” button to switch between English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Russian, Mandarin Chinese, Bahasa Indonesia, Kiswahili, Malay, Bengali, Assamese and Hindi.

PUBLIC DICTIONARIES

If you recently created a Living Dictionary and you want to make it visible to the public, please reply to this email or send us a message using the “Contact Us” button in the top menu bar of the Living Dictionaries website.

Best wishes,
– the Living Dictionaries development team