Report from OWNAL

Posted on by Gretchen
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I’ve been learning a lot here in Oklahoma at the Oklahoma Workshop on Native American Languages (OWNAL) this weekend that I think could be really relevant for our projects. I’ve been exchanging contact information with a lot of people so hopefully we may be able to share ideas with some of them. I’m planning on writing a series of blog posts over the next week or so describing some of the specific ideas, and I’m especially hoping to get digital copies of some of the handouts or presentations that I can share with everyone. So stay tuned for this!

In the meantime, the program of events for the weekend can be found as part of the 40th Symposium on the American Indian program (scroll down to the bottom for the OWNAL-specific portion). If you’re interested in how I tried to present what I’ve been doing on indefinites for a broad-ish audience, here is also my Mi’gmaq Indefinites handout for OWNAL.

 

Mi’gmaq goes to Harvard!

Posted on by Carol Rose
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This weekend, April 14th-15th, a few of our members will be going down to Boston to present their research at the 10th Annual Harvard Undergraduate Linguistics Colloquium. Yuliya will be presenting her research on obviation and number marking in Mi’gmaq . I will also be presenting on a topic, though unrelated to Mi’gmaq (Affrication across word boundaries in Canadian and American English, co-written with another fellow McGillian undergraduate, Thea Knowles). We are looking forward to meeting with another one of our group members who is at Harvard, Dave!

Presenting on Mi’gmaq Indefinites at OWNAL

Posted on by Gretchen
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This weekend, I (Gretchen) am going to be presenting about Mi’gmaq indefinites at OWNAL, the Oklahoma Workshop on Native American Languages at Northeastern State University, Tahlequah, Oklahoma. More information about the workshop can be found here. If I can figure out how to post attachments, I’ll try to post a copy of my handout later, but in any case, my next project will be reformatting the information in it for the wiki.

Wiki update & Algonquian bibliographies…

Posted on by Mike
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The grammar wiki is beginning to take shape as Gretchen has wrote a brief introduction and listed some possible starting points for topics. Let us know if you would like to write about a topic once you have sent us your revised page(s) from the old wiki. We are looking for volunteers!

As well, I have put up a gloss-ary with glossing standards we would like everyone to use on the grammar wiki. It includes a working list of abbreviations based on the Leipzig Glossing Conventions (see the sidebar on this page). Please feel free to add (or possibly delete) abbreviations, but please send me a message if you do so we can make sure to keep everything consistent. I have included a notes column beside in the terms table to make these terms as transparent as possible to a wide audience. So feel free to add links to your page if you address any of these terms explicitly, or add comments. Also, the table itself is a user-sortable table. Click on the symbol beside the header of a column to sort the table in different manners. Please let me know what you think about the appropriateness this style of table.

In other news, Jessica has found an informative Algonquian bibliography made by Connor. Here is a comprehensive Algonquian bibliography I found a little while ago. Take a look if you get a chance!

 

(Fun with) Mi’gmaq verb conjugations

Posted on by Jessica
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We now have an electronic searchable English translation of Father Pacifique’s 1939 grammar Leçons grammaticales théoriques et pratiques de la langue micmaque, available in the group Dropbox folder (add a comment if you’d like access). He describes 7 main verb conjugations in Mi’gmaq, which you can find linked from the table of contents.

I think those of us who started working on the language last term realize by now that verbs fall into different groups, which result in different inflection, but we haven’t been talking consistently about this. Let’s try to prioritize getting this up on the wiki: a “verb conjugations” page, divided into different sections, with paradigms and examples in each. It will be some work up front, but we can divide it up and I think will save time in the long run so each person isn’t trying to figure out the same thing on their own––and asking our patient consultant the same questions. Let’s also find a consistent table format to use for transitive and intransitive paradigms, to make them easier to compare.

Those who will be at the McGill meeting on Monday: please try to at least skim the relevant parts (“Lessons 9–28”) so we have a sense what we’re looking at and what will need to be done.

CAN8 Coordination Meeting

Posted on by Elise
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Hi guys! CAN-8 Team here, checking in to talk about our meeting with Conor Quinn, and Mary Ann Metallic and Janice Vicaire, as well as set up some plans for the coming weeks.

We talked about a lot of things at this meeting! Some of it was very broad, sweeping things–the linguistics consultants (Mr. Quinn especially!) were focusing on how to construct lessons such that learners become speakers fast. These were a few points we discussed, and we’d love to hear your thoughts on them too:

  • material (vocabulary and structures) should be local and relevant to daily life
  • material should also be memorable in its content–more funny = more better! It’s easier to draw on something that you laughed at while learning.
  • focus on learning strategies to keep learners learning outside the classroom. Learning how to talk to speakers in their families, bring their knowledge of Mi’gmaq home with them.
  • how to not be embarrassed about getting things wrong from time to time–we all do it!
  • start with basic interactions (“you and me” discussions) so that they can use as much Mi’gmaq as possible, as soon as possible.
  • avoid grammatical jargon and complicated terms. They often aren’t helpful, are sometimes wrong, and don’t help speakers as much as familiar/relatable terminology will (plus, it’s less metalinguistic terminology to remember).
  • avoid long lists to be memorized–knowing every colour is cool, but not necessarily linguistically helpful.
  • when learning new vocabulary, try to avoid “translation” approaches from English -> Mi’gmaq, but rather go from picture/concept (discussed in Mi’gmaq if possible) to the Mi’gmaq word.

We also discussed the role of writing in Mi’gmaq teaching/learning/usage. We want to include elders who shouldn’t be forced to learn a writing system they don’t currently use, but we also want to integrate online material–it is just plain easier to interact over the Internet with access to typing. What are your thoughts on the role of writing? How much should we recommend teaching it specifically? Is it better to let learners develop their own systems as they go, or start off with one from the get-go? Comments are open!

Our big goal for the coming month is to get a CAN8 skeleton up and ready to fill in with actual material. We still haven’t learned the language ourselves (yet!) so this will involve a whole lot of back-and-forth between experienced teachers/speakers and us consultants.

Exciting times indeed! If I can figure out the picture-inserting tool, there should be a picture under this post. Cross your fingers for us!

March 23 meeting at McGill

March 23 meeting at McGill. From left-to-right, reporting for duty! Conor Quinn, Gretchen McCulloch, Mary Ann Metallic, Janice Metallic, Erin Olson, Jacob Leon, Elise McClay, Jessica Coon