Language Revitalization and Aboriginal Studies in Canada

Posted on by Carol Rose
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Some information on aboriginal studies:

University of Victoria in offers a certificate in aboriginal language revitalization. The program includes courses on field methods, language and land, linguistics, and indigenous language and culture. The program is comprised of six core courses and three elective courses. Core courses are offered in the spring and summer.

Despite a faulty announcement that an indigenous studies program had been approved at McGill, it is still in the works. However, there is hope that there will be a minor available to students wishing to take this program in the next year. This minor can hopefully be developed into a major. It would be an interdisciplinary program.

There are many universities in Canada that offer aboriginal studies programs. They include: McMaster University, Trent University, and University of British Columbia.

Some website changes

Posted on by Elise
5

There’ve been a couple small changes to this site–

1) anybody can now post a comment, but if they aren’t logged in then they have to do a CAPTCHA to be able to post. If you are logged in but the CAPTCHA is appearing anyway, please let me (Elise) know, and I can change the settings again to try to fix that.

2) only people with accounts can edit the wiki. To get an account, just email wiki@migmaq.org , and Gretchen will set you up with one!

3) we’re making a name for ourselves! Choose the name you like best, or suggest something new in the comments below.

ETA: The votes are in! This post declares us the Mi’gmaq Research Partnership, barring any strong objections.

What should we call ourselves?

Immerse yourself in the language

Posted on by Vicky
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At the end of July, a small group of volunteers stepped forward and committed themselves to teach and learn Mi’gmaq through this method. It’s called the Master Apprentice Program. Although not yet formally implemented yet here in Listuguj,
they’re getting the feel for what it’s like. I’m sure at some point they’d love to see this grow into a full blown program. We’ll be meeting with the small group of volunteers this Friday to get some feedback.

Hear what participants from British Columbia had to say about their Master Apprentice experience after committing over 300 hours over three years, only speaking their First Nations language.

Language Revival in Oregon – The Siletz

Posted on by Carol Rose
1

The New York Times has recently written an article about the revitalization project amoung the Siletz tribe in Oregon entitled Tribe revives language on verge of extinction. They are incorporating language programs in school, teaching Siletz as a foreign language, for members of the community to learn. There is also a Siletz talking dictionary! (like the Mi’gmaq one!!) Their dictionary has attracted attention from users from related language groups as well as users all around the world. It has become more and more popular for youngsters to learn because not only is it part of their Siletz identity, the language also “can sound pretty cool” with its many sounds not found in English. Bridging technology and tradition, the Siletz are creating successful language resources.

The value of revitalizing a language

Posted on by Vicky
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This morning, I came across a few quotes that really spoke to me.

“Language is the expression of our culture and our land. We cannot have one without the other”

This summer, I have the privilege of working alongside language instructors and linguists. When I heard of the efforts being made to document and develop tools to help revitalized our language, I offered my services to help out in any way I can to bring recognition of language and its importance to the greater community. When I first started, I wanted to quickly introduce the various programs and services that Listuguj currently has to offer, but the question always remained.. “Why” should people learn? What will it do for our people and our community if we had the entire community speaking Mi’gmaq? Would love to get this discussion going in the community. I believe that creating a powerful “why” will help inspire and motivate ourselves to help revitalize and to keep our languages alive. What’s your “why”? 🙂 Hope everyone has a great day!

A few quotes on the importance of keeping our Indigenous languages alive

Posted on by Vicky
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Language is our soul.
(Aunty Rose Fernando, Gamilaroi Elder, 1998)

Language is the expression of our culture and our land. We cannot have one without the others. We cannot describe our culture and our land if we do not have language.
(Queensland Indigenous Languages Advisory Committee, 2006 )

Recognition of Indigenous languages and support for Indigenous language programs stand alongside land rights, health, justice, education, housing, employment and other services as part of the overall process of pursuing social justice and reconciliation in Australia.

One might go so far as to say that without recognition of the Indigenous people and their languages, many other programs will be less effective, because this lack of recognition will show that the underlying attitudes of the dominant society have not changed significantly.
(Dr. Graham McKay. Edith Cowan University. The Land Still Speaks. 1996.)

Obviation and Intransitives

Posted on by Erin
2

Mi’gmaq is a language with obviation – that is, a way of telling animate third persons apart. The first third person (or the proximate third person) is not marked, while the other third persons (or obviative third person or fourth person) is marked with the suffix -l or -al, as in Mali nemiatl Piel-al, ‘Mary sees Peter’.  The verb also receives an ending indicating that a proximate person is acting on an obviative person: -atl. These endings can also vary for the number of people involved, like so:

  • -aji, as in nemiaji, ‘he or she sees them (obviative)’
  • -a’titl, as in nemia’titl, ‘they see him or her (obviative)’
  • -a’tiji, as in nemia’tiji, ‘they see them (obviative)’

This is really useful, since it helps us keep track of who is doing what and allows the word order in Mi’gmaq to vary. So, whether we say Mali nemiatl Pielal or Pielal nemiatl Mali or Nemiatl Mali Pielal, etc., we have a way of knowing who is seen and who is doing the seeing that is not based purely on word order, like in English.

But this isn’t the only way obviatives are used! If, say, we’ve already been talking about someone in the obviative person, we can continue referring to them in the obviative person with other verbs – even with intransitives. For example, if we’ve already said Mali gesalaji mui’naq, ‘Mary likes bears’, we could then say Wigulti’niji nipugtug, ‘they (the bears) live in the forest’, where the ending –ulti’nij means that it is them (obviative) that are living there, and not any other group.

Here are a few questions I have about this topic:

  • For Researchers: Has anyone else seen any 4th person marking on AI verbs? If so, would this information need to be included in AI verb paradigms on our wiki page?
  • For Speakers: Does the above example using wigulti’nij sound right to you? If so, how would you say “they (the two bears) live in the forest” or “it (the bear) lives in the forest” in a similar situation? Also, if you spot any errors, I will be happy to fix them!

Gigpesaq!

Posted on by Carol Rose
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Sepei gigpesaqaq aq nige’ alugwig… Saponug na’gusetewitew!

Hello from rainy Listuguj! Good thing we have been learning about the weather because sepei ma’munloqap (it was pouring this morning!)

Students, both in the post secondary class and the high school graduate class, have been learning (and mastering!) many different grammatical and lexical elements of the Mi’gmaq language from inanimate intransitive verb paradigms to body parts!

Update 2 from CoLang

Posted on by Gretchen
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In the second week of CoLang, I took courses on Archives/Databases, Strategies to Reintroduce Languages, Pedagogical Grammars, and Internet/Multimedia.

Archives/Databases: In this course, we learned how to use SQL and OpenOffice Base to make databases, which are basically like inter-connected spreadsheets where the information can be presented in a variety of different ways. If anyone is interested in learning how to do any of this, there are very detailed slides available for the first and second weeks of this course.

Strategies: This was a class about using archived and written material for language teaching, particularly for languages without many fluent speakers anymore. We talked about a variety of sources for language learning materials and things you can do with them. Some things that other language communities have done include an iphone app for learning Yati, Wunderkammer, a project for making spelling dictionaries on mobile phones (so you can text in a language more easily), a list of lesson plans for language-learning in general, and some audio/video lessons that have been made in Mohegan. Other ideas are playing games like I Spy and Simon Says, and the “Where are my keys?” game that I posted about earlier.

Pedagogical Grammars: This class looked at lots of different types of grammars and discussed what makes a grammar effective for teaching (syllabus here). SpokenCree.org is a website with audio Cree lessons that goes with a series of textbooks on the Cree language. A great quote from Jacob Manitowa-Bailey, who has done a lot of work with the Sauk Master-Apprentice program:

“Concrete, contextualized, varied, modern, and repeated sentence length examples are better than charts, explanations, or isolated examples in longer narratives.” -Jacob Manatowa-Bailey

Internet/Multimedia: In this class, we discussed a variety of ways to use Internet resources to promote and use language. A few examples of interesting things we were shown: Indigenous Tweets, which lists people who tweet in indigenous languages. Navajo Word of the Day, a website (also on Facebook and Twitter) that gives a new Navajo word each day. We also learned how to put QR codes on posters to send people to a website on their smartphone. I have a demo of this that I can show if anyone’s interested but I don’t think I want to put it up online at the moment.