Douglas Gordon, who spent his first summer in Listuguj last summer, has published a piece in the McGill Reporter’s “Notes from the Field”. Douglas writes about his experiences in Listuguj and the efforts of the Mi’gmaq language revitalization project ongoing there. View his story here.
“Notes from the Field” features posts by McGill students and professors who have done fieldwork and research across the world.
On Monday September 1st, MRP members Janine Metallic and Michael Hamilton were featured on 90.3FM CKUT’s show “All Things McGill“. CKUT invited them to talk about the community-linguistics partnership between Listuguj and the McGill Linguistics Department.
Janine spoke on how the project began as a linguistics Field Methods course. “In sharing a knowledge about my language, I would also expect the class as a whole to share something with the community and so that’s where the partnership really started to take hold. All the students’ projects in the class were directed at parts of the Mi’gmaq language where they could come back to the community and present. And that’s what they did at the end of the semester.”
Michael spoke on the changing nature of research and fieldwork. He discussed the unfortunate tradition in many academic disciplines where there is “a lot of taking of knowledge and not a lot of sharing” adding that “recently this trend has been changing and we wanted to be part of this changing trend where knowledge can flow both ways.”
You can listen to the show here (scroll to minute 6 for the programme to begin).
huffle by posting a video of you speaking Mi’gmaq on instagram with the hashtag #migmaqcontest or post the video to the Listuguj Mi’gmaw Language Club on Facebook.
Douglas, Carol Rose, Lola, Yuliya and Alan on Goat Island, Eskasoni, NS.
Our latest venture has brought us (Alan, Carol Rose, Douglas, Lola, and Yuliya) 739 km southeast of Listuguj to Eskasoni, a Mi’gmaq First Nations Reserve in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. Eskasoni is a model community where the Mi’gmaq language is alive and spoken daily between its community members. Leaving on Sunday, we set out to meet with community members and Mi’gmaq teachers who are helping preserve the language.
The first day we met with our host, Blaire Gould, the Mi’kmaw Kina’matnewey Mi’gmaq Language Coordinator. Blaire Gould works with all programs related to education and the Mi’gmaq language. These tasks include working with Mi’gmaq online dictionary, leading professional development workshops, presenting on the Mi’gmaq language programs around the continent, coordinating Mi’gmaq language programs in and around Eskasoni and between all that she organizes the bienniel L’nuisultinej conference at St. Francis Xavier University.
Retired teachers (a.k.a. The Pioneers of the Immersion Program) Barbara Joe and Fran Young and former Mi’gmaq immersion teacher Mary Propser-Paul joined us over tea to talk about their experiences teaching Mi’gmaq.
Goat Island pathway
We talked to them about our newest development, learnmigmaq quizlet, which they received with enthusiasm. Grade 1 Mi’gmaq immersion teacher Cindy Poulette, has been using a flashcard game in her classroom. The grade 1 children sit in groups while Cindy holds up a card with a picture on it. Whichever group gueses the correct Mi’gmaq word first receives a point. She liked the audio and image function that quizlet provides. Due to its versatile and accessible nature, quizlet can be used in classrooms via the internet and projected on a screen for such games. When offline, the quizlet app can also be accessed with a smartphone or tablet and any list that had been opened beforehand can be used. The quizlet interface can accommodate a game such as Cindy’s for classes of all ages and all levels.
Meeting at the Elder Centre, we talked with retired and current teachers about the state of the Mi’gmaq language in Eskasoni as well as the programs in effect and under development. Eskasoni has an immersion program up to grade 4. The immersion program is taught at the community school in Eskasoni where all courses are transmitted in the Mi’gmaq language. Grade 4 is the transition year where classes are bilingual English and Mi’gmaq to prepare them for grade 5 where all classes are in English.
Storage lodge on Goat Island.
In the afternoon we took a tour of Goat Island, a cultural walking experienced located in Eskasoni. We walked around the island which had various mini villages set up along the way, each one having different theme. The themes of the mini villages included basket-making, waltes (a traditional Mi’gmaq game) and replicas of wigwams.
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
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:
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!
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.
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.
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!
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:
