[LINK] "‘Genius grant’ a boost to linguist as she revives a native language"
Recently, Language Log linked to a recent article by Boston Globe reporter Laura Collins-Hughes. In it, the article describes how Wampanoag linguist Jessie Little Doe Baird is trying to revive her people's ancestral language, her efforts winning her a MacArthur Fellows' genius grant worth a half-million dollars.
When the foundation notified Baird, 46, a Mashpee linguist and the program director of the Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project, two weeks ago of the fellowship, the honor brought her to tears. As far as she knows, her 6-year-old daughter is the only child since the 19th century raised from birth to speak Wampanoag (or, in that language, Wôpanâak).
[. . .]
Baird, one of the principal authors of a developing 10,000-word Wampanoag-English dictionary, does not view her personal role in reviving the language as critical. Instead, she talks about the benefits of being able to speak the language of her ancestors. “The opportunity to hear what my fifth great-grandfather had to say, even though he’s gone, because he wrote it down, really is a powerful motivation,’’ she said.
The author's description of Baird's methods for reconstructing the Wampanoag seems plausible enough, given the inevitable dominance of non-spoken
According to Baird, her ancestors were “the first American Indian people to use an alphabetic writing system,’’ and the first Bible published on this continent - a key document in her research - was printed in 1663 in Wampanoag.
After English missionaries arrived on this continent, the Wampanoag people were quick to realize the power of the written word, Baird said, especially to resolve land disputes with the Europeans. “And so Wampanoag people started to record land transfers, wills, personal letters,’’ she said. The result is what she called “the largest collection of native written documents on the continent.’’
But there are no documents from the second half of the 19th century, which to Baird suggests that Wampanoag disappeared then. Much of her task in reconstructing it as a written and spoken language is a kind of detective work.
[. . .]
Other Algonquian languages that are still spoken, such as Cree and Passamaquoddy, are especially useful for figuring out pronunciation. “If I’m not sure of my vowel in a particular syllable, or my consonant even, then I can appeal to Passamaquoddy and see what’s going on with that word,’’ she said. “I can say, ‘Yes, I was right. That’s the vowel we want in this spot’ or ‘Oh, no, I missed the boat. It’s actually a long A instead of a short A.’ ’’
The commenters at Language Hat comment about the size of the dictionary at ten thousand words: does it include words made to cover items and issues that the Wampanoag would never have imagined ("computer") or does it include words produced by the Alqonkian languages' polysynthetic word creation? Likely both, a reliable consensus seems to be. Also, as a commenter notes, Wampanoag has not been spoken in Massachusetts since time immemorial since the entire language family only appeared three or thousand thousand years ago, never mind the vagaries of the migrations and mixings and ultimate arrival times of the Wampanoag ancestors.
There's also the implicit assumption that this language revival will work. I'm not going to touch this.
When the foundation notified Baird, 46, a Mashpee linguist and the program director of the Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project, two weeks ago of the fellowship, the honor brought her to tears. As far as she knows, her 6-year-old daughter is the only child since the 19th century raised from birth to speak Wampanoag (or, in that language, Wôpanâak).
[. . .]
Baird, one of the principal authors of a developing 10,000-word Wampanoag-English dictionary, does not view her personal role in reviving the language as critical. Instead, she talks about the benefits of being able to speak the language of her ancestors. “The opportunity to hear what my fifth great-grandfather had to say, even though he’s gone, because he wrote it down, really is a powerful motivation,’’ she said.
The author's description of Baird's methods for reconstructing the Wampanoag seems plausible enough, given the inevitable dominance of non-spoken
According to Baird, her ancestors were “the first American Indian people to use an alphabetic writing system,’’ and the first Bible published on this continent - a key document in her research - was printed in 1663 in Wampanoag.
After English missionaries arrived on this continent, the Wampanoag people were quick to realize the power of the written word, Baird said, especially to resolve land disputes with the Europeans. “And so Wampanoag people started to record land transfers, wills, personal letters,’’ she said. The result is what she called “the largest collection of native written documents on the continent.’’
But there are no documents from the second half of the 19th century, which to Baird suggests that Wampanoag disappeared then. Much of her task in reconstructing it as a written and spoken language is a kind of detective work.
[. . .]
Other Algonquian languages that are still spoken, such as Cree and Passamaquoddy, are especially useful for figuring out pronunciation. “If I’m not sure of my vowel in a particular syllable, or my consonant even, then I can appeal to Passamaquoddy and see what’s going on with that word,’’ she said. “I can say, ‘Yes, I was right. That’s the vowel we want in this spot’ or ‘Oh, no, I missed the boat. It’s actually a long A instead of a short A.’ ’’
The commenters at Language Hat comment about the size of the dictionary at ten thousand words: does it include words made to cover items and issues that the Wampanoag would never have imagined ("computer") or does it include words produced by the Alqonkian languages' polysynthetic word creation? Likely both, a reliable consensus seems to be. Also, as a commenter notes, Wampanoag has not been spoken in Massachusetts since time immemorial since the entire language family only appeared three or thousand thousand years ago, never mind the vagaries of the migrations and mixings and ultimate arrival times of the Wampanoag ancestors.
There's also the implicit assumption that this language revival will work. I'm not going to touch this.