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 In October 2021, we obtained drafts of unpublished, in-depth linguistic analysis on Catawba from the Smithsonian that will help inform future work on Woccon because it is a closely related language.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.