Author Archives: Carol Rose

Carol Rose

About Carol Rose

Carol Rose Little graduated from McGill University in the Joint Honours Programme in Linguistics and Russian Studies in 2012. She began studying Mi'gmaq in the fall of 2011 for a field methods class. Her interests include Algonquian morphosyntax and evidentiality. So far she has spent summers 2012 and 2013 on Listuguj Mi'gmaq First Nations Reserve studying Mi'gmaq and doing linguistic fieldwork.

Twitter, instagram, language club and more!

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There are many new developments going on this summer to spread the Mi’gmaq language. Follow us on instagram, twitter and facebook to stay involved!

Twitter – @learnmigmaq follow word of the day #migmaqwordoftheday

Instagram – @learnmigmaq weekly videos with vocabulary and dialogue in the Mi’gmaq language. Also check out Savvy Simon’s videos on instagram (@msnativewarrior). L’nuisi, it’s that easy!

Listuguj Mi’gmaw Language Club – Weekly conversation group meeting every Thursday at 6pm at the Listuguj Education Directorate. All activities are solely in Mi’gmaq – a great way to practice conversation in Mi’gmaq.

Mi’gmaq Language Summer Workshop 2 - Check out our webpage under the workshop section for more information. This event will take place August 5th at the Listuguj Bingo Hall.

How to get involved

Be a part of our social media team! For Mi’gmaq videos, posts or pictures just use the hashtag #SpeakMikmaq or #SpeakMigmaq

What do Beyoncé and Buzzfeed have in common with the Mi’gmaq language? Read on!

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Summer 2014, the McGill students are back. Yuliya, McGill PhD Candiate, and Carol Rose, beginning her doctoral studies at Cornell University in the fall, will both be traveling to Listuguj for their second and third summers, respectively. Douglas Gordon, an undergraduate in the linguistics department, will also be joining them after having been awarded the McGill Arts Scholarship.

The team plans to continue projects like the wiki, language-learning software, and research.

New possibilities for summer 2014 are the following:

  • Twitter word of the day
  • Instagram/vine video of the day featuring a conversation or vocabulary word in Mi’gmaq
  • A new web site, separate from the linguistic-y one, devoted to Mi’gmaq learning resources
  • Buzzfeed-esque top 10 lists (e.g. top 10 essential words in Mi’gmaq, five ways to say hello)
  • Weekly language club
  • Surveys posted around in visible places of students learning Mi’gmaq similar to the survey posted below for AMEX by Beyoncé (except “why I learn Mi’gmaq” rather than “my card..”)

Surveys for students of Mi’gmaq, but less AMEX-y and more language-y

Please comment with thoughts about this below. All input is greatly appreciated!

Writing in a second language

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A recent New York Times article brings up an interesting trend of authors writing in a second language. This is very common in the academic sphere as many academics chose English as the language for publication. However, in the literature sphere, writing in a second language is becoming more common. And it is not just English they are writing in.

The authors say a second language gives them a different perspective, some say even freeing them from the automaticism of a native language. They are able to play with words in ways that native speakers may not do. For example, Bosnian writer, Aleksandar Hemon, has invented new phrases like “clouds and cloudettes”.

Italian writer, Francesca Marciano, says about writing in a second language: “You discover not just words but new things about yourself when you learn a language…I am a different person because I fell in love with English…”

How does Mi’gmaq factor into this? Learners of Mi’gmaq should not think of their second language skills as a crutch. Rather, they can bring new and exciting flavour to the language they are speaking. There have been many successful writers and orators who use a non-native language as their language of choice. A second language can be a new and exciting medium of expression. Not only do you learn about another culture and history but you can also learn about yourself.

Dual forms — English had them too!

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Anyone who is familiar with Mi’gmaq verb paradigms will recall the dizzingly large number of conjugations. Some forms that learners struggle to grasp are the dual and plural forms. The dual form is used when referring to two things and the plural, for three or more. This surfaces on verb endings. For example, the tongue twister migjigjg mijjijig means two turtles are eating. This is conveyed by the -jig verb ending (bolded). If three or more turtles were eating, it would be migjigjg mijjultijig.

Many English speakers, however, will be surprised to find that English had dual forms too! Old(e) English, that is. They were rare, even for the time, but a millennium ago English speakers distinguished between dual and plural in pronouns. Modern English first person plural form we comes from the Old English plural form, wē. The dual form of first person, wit, fell out of usage by the time Middle English had evolved. The plural form of ‘you’, gē, and the dual, git, were also used when addressing people directly. Though, today you wouldn’t want to refer any two people with the Old English dual form!

This is just one such instance of the underlying similarities between languages of completely different families. Though English and Mi’gmaq are very different in terms of grammar and lexicon, they do have some things in common. Or, at least, they did.

New Pages Added to the Grammar Wiki

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There have been some recent developments on the Mi’gmaq grammar wiki. These include the addition of two new pages.

One new page in the works is a subpage of the Mi’gmaq tense page. In light of the recent presentation at the 45th Algonquian Conference (Little, 2013), I have created a new page on Evidentiality in Mi’gmaq. Evidentiality is the grammatical marking of information source. This page includes an overlay of the evidentiality system in Mi’gmaq. This page indicates that are two clear evidentiality markers–direct and indirect. The direct evidentiality marker is used for information that the speaker is certain about or has witnessed firsthand. The indirect marker is used for when the speaker is unsure of the information or when he has witnessed this second-hand. It is also used in questions in the past tense. Nota bene: this page is still under construction! Stay tuned for more!

I have also included a page devoted to Conversational Mi’gmaq. This page has the essentials of Mi’gmaq conversation, i.e. from hello/goodbye to what is your name/where are you from,  and how to respond to such questions. This page can be found from the main page of the wiki. This section, too, is still under construction. The intended use for this page is for those interested in getting a jump-start in their Mi’gmaq learning. Knowing these phrases will help anyone wanting to learn ‘nnueiei tli’suti [the Native language]! 

As the wiki is always under new developments, any suggestions, corrections or advice will always be greatly appreciated. So please do not hesitate to comment if you see any mistakes or if you would like to see a certain topic addressed!

45th Algonquian Conference Highlights

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Mi’gmaq Research Partnership members were well represented at this year’s 45th Algonquian Conference at University of Ottawa in the Canadian national capital. Here is the conference round-up:

Mary Ann Metallic receives LSA’s Excellence in Community Linguistics Award

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Mary Ann Metallic, Mi’gmaq language teacher at Listuguj Education Directorate, receives LSA’s Excellence in Community Linguistics Award. The LSA writes:

Mary Ann Metallic has done exemplary work to revitalize the Mi’gmaq language in her home community of Listuguj, Quebec. Her infectious passion for Mi’gmaq has led to the development of a successful teaching program, and her work with linguists has resulted in significant contributions to language documentation and linguistic theory.

The annual LSA meeting will be held in Minneapolis, MN January 2-5, 2014. Mary Ann and her daughter, Janine, will be traveling there. Congratulations Mary Ann!

Courses at LED and the Mi’gmaq Language Summer Workshop

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Mi’gmaq language classes have started this week at the Listuguj Education Directorate. Supposed to be three days a week, students have requested a fourth day in order to improve their language skills. Classes are off to a wonderful start! Wellugutioq ms’t wen!

Listuguj Education Directorate and the McGill Linguistics department will host a Mi’gmaq Language Summer workshop. See the new Mi’gmaq Language Summer Workshop page for more information.

‘Nnu’gina’masultinej!

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Let’s Learn the Native Language – ‘Nnu’gina’masultinej!

MaryAnn just launched the Facebook page ‘Nnu’gina’masultinej. There are a wealth of references to help learners improve their Mi’gmaw. Pictures from her classroom as well as grammatical explanations will be updated throughout Mi’gmaw classes. Stay tuned for more information. We invite everyone to like and follow it! ‘Nnugina’masultinej!

Computational Field Workshop at McGill

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Hisako and Gina presenting about LingSync during day 1 of the work shop.

Hisako and Gina presenting about LingSync during day 1 of the work shop.

Today concluded the two day Computational Field Workshop at McGill University. Plenary speaker Alexis Palmer joined from Saarland University, Germany to talk about her work using computational tools for low-resource languages.

iLanguage Lab along with its collaborators and interns, Hisako Noguchi, Carol Little, Josh Horner, Tobin Skinner, and Louisa Bielig, presented their work in developing the Google Chrome extension and Android App, LingSync. This is particularly useful for field linguists as it store all field data in one secure, customizable, and easy-to-use app. A morning tutorial for the workshop participants was held where they were able to test this app out with data from Quechua.

Erin Olson presenting her work with the Prosody Lab's forced aligner on day 2 of the workshop.

Erin Olson explaining her work with the Prosody Lab’s aligner on day 2 of the workshop.

Robert Henderson also shared his work on using computational tools to clean and analyze texts from SIL bibles translated into Kaqchikel for his work on demonstrative pronouns.

Erin Olson presented her work on using the Prosody Lab’s aligner which aligns text to sound files in Praat. This is a useful tool as it can speed up annotating processes. Scripts for the Prosody Lab Aligner can be found here.

All slides and information from this workshop can be found on the Computational Field Workshop website.

In addition to these great tools, Elise McClay in collaboration with iLanguage Lab is developing a Learn [language] app. This app, still a prototype, will be able to be used in conjunction with LingSync to create customizable languages lessons for any language. Currently there is an example Mi’gmaq lesson on this app. More on this can be found at the Canadian Linguistics Association conference at the University of Victoria, BC. See programme here.

Computational tools, like the aforementioned, can facilitate and accelerate collection and analysis of data from the field. Used in conjunction with native speakers and other researchers such tools can lead to not only better linguistics explanations but also transparency of the research for all parties involved.