New Words Needed: A Comparative Database for Algonquian Lexical - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

New Words Needed: A Comparative Database for Algonquian Lexical Innovation Hunter T. Lockwood, Monica Macaulay, Daniel W. Hieber Historical-Comparative Linguistics for Language Revitalization June 29, 2019

We respectfully acknowledge that we are on the traditional land of Patwin-speaking people. We acknowledge the painful history of the California gold rush in this territory, and we honor and respect the indigenous peoples connected to this land. 2

it’s been a long day, so here’s a cup of coffee to get you through the last talk… Miami-Illinois Menominee kociihsaapowi kahpēh ‘bean liquid’ Potawatomi gapi Ojibwe makade-mashkikiwaaboo ‘black-medicine liquid’ 3

Recent Headlines 4

New Words Needed • Need for novel vocabulary • especially in immersion settings • specifically, for Algonquian languages • Our project: historical-comparative database of derivational morphemes that can be used in creation of novel vocabulary 5

Roadmap 1. Introduction: Need for novel vocabulary 2. Background: Derivation in Algonquian languages 3. Our proposal: The database 4. Communities building new words 5. Use in linguistics 6. Conclusion 6

1. Need: Novel Vocabulary • Keep language relevant for young people • create words for new technology, etc. • Immersion schools: teaching all subjects in the language 7

Methods Used • Jessie Little Doe Baird: “The Wampanoag pretty much do what English speakers do… Communities borrow words, and if somebody at some point decides that something is important, they will give it a name in that language.” • Iceland: “The Language Planning Department, a small government-funded office of linguists with a rotating cast of subject experts is in charge of integrating new and foreign concepts into the millennia-old Icelandic language.” 8

Methods: Committee of Elders • Waadookodaading Immersion School, Hayward, WI 9

Ojibwe Vocabulary Project “Some aspects […] of instruction are not indigenous to Ojibwe and are difficult to teach such as algebraic formulas (nominator, arrays, fractions, variables), scientific principles (cell nomenclature, volcanic terms), abstract ideas of government (filibuster, bill of rights), grammar (tense, conjunct, adverb) and many other subjects.” ( Aaniin Ekidong p. 5) 10

Ojibwe Vocabulary Project • 3-day meeting • large group of elders • most words agreed on in groups; a few generated by individuals • 128-page booklet 11

Example: Ojibwe Vocabulary Project 12

But… • What if the community doesn’t have any elder first- language speakers, or if those elders aren’t inclined to create new words? • Our (very Algonquian-specific) solution: database of Algonquian derivational morphemes 13

2. Background: Derivation in Algonquian Languages 14

Words in Algonquian languages 15

Examples 16

Examples, cont. 17

Examples, cont. 18

3. The database • Web-based • Works on any computer / device (including mobile) • Synchronizes across devices • Online collaboration / permissions • Online / offline (works like an app) • Choice of data storage location (offline or cloud) 19

3. The database, cont. • Open access • Not dependent on a single programmer • Anybody can contribute ideas, issue reports, or code • Transparency – decisions and their discussion can be viewed online • Code is open access, the data is private (uses permissions) • Project benefits from distributed knowledge of programming and linguistics 20

3. The database, cont. • Data Format for Digital Linguistics (DaFoDiL) (Hieber 2019) • Uses the same format used by most web apps (JSON) • Simple text-based format, more human-readable and human-writable than XML • Specifies a set of properties and how they should be formatted for various linguistic objects (Texts, Morphemes, Phonemes, etc.) • Uses linguistic terminology and concepts rather than programming terminology and concepts • Interoperable – anybody who follows the format guidelines can use DaFoDiL data in their own program 21

Component Cognate Sets 22

4. Communities building new words • “Today’s young speakers need to accurately imitate the past while creating the future.” (Noodin to appear) • Older generations of Algonquian language speakers used their knowledge of components to coin words to describe novel objects they came into contact with • Encoded their unique perspectives and experiences 23

Ojibwe examples • giboodiyegwaazon ‘(pair of) pants’ [[gibw-diye-gwaazo]-n] [[blocked.off-butt-sew]-nominalizer] • mazinaabikiwebinigan ‘computer’ [[mazin-aabik-webin]-igan] [[image-inorganic.solid-fling.by.hand]-nominalizer] • From an older word for ‘typewriter’ (Examples from Mike Sullivan, p.c.) 24

Miami-Illinois example • Community members reclaiming languages without speakers create words in the same ways, but infuse them with their own unique perspectives: • A Miami-Illinois word for ‘computer’ was never documented [unsurprisingly] • Modern Miami-Illinois reclaimers coined kiinteelintaakani ‘computer’ [[kiint-eelintam]-kan] [[fast-thinking]-nominalizer] 25

Miami-Illinois: discussion • Leonard (2007:5): “In the relatively infrequent case where a given form is not attested, it is sometimes reconstituted by means of comparative historical linguistics and reference to forms in other Algonquian languages.” • Baldwin et al. (2016:398) “There are two primary methods by which phonological details can be filled in for Miami-Illinois data. One is by comparing all the varying original transcriptions for the words, and the other is by comparing the Miami-Illinois words with cognate data from its closely related sister languages.” 26

In addition to the database… • Outreach activities: word workshops • Would-be word coiners will need some training • principles of combination • morphophonemics • basic comparative linguistics methods 27

Summer 2017 workshop • Designed for community language learners, language teachers, language activists 28

5. Use in linguistics 1. Reconstruction! • Bloomfield (1946): reconstructed PA based on Meskwaki (Fox), Menominee, Cree, Ojibwe • geographically central languages • has more or less stood up 29

Reconstruction: “State of the art” • Hewson (1993): computer-generated dictionary of PA • now on-line (https://protoalgonquian.atl as-ling.ca//#!/help) • flawed, but everybody uses it because the alternative is… 30

The alternative • Zillions of articles, chapters, books • Bloomfield, Hockett, Goddard, Pentland, Costa… • like searching for buried treasure 31

Use in linguistics, cont. 2. Comparison and subgrouping! (Valentine 2001) 32

Lexical Lists (e.g. Swadesh list) • Recent experience: tried to do lexical list across Algonquian languages • Methodological problem: doing comparative linguistics demands rigorous form-meaning matches, but… 33

Lexical Lists • Had to omit vast numbers of words due to differences in lexical category, animacy features, etc. • Furthermore, structure of Algonquian words severely limits where we can establish matches 34

Lexical Lists • ‘carry’ in Menominee 35

How to do reconstruction with words like this? • Not every ‘carry’ word attested in Menominee may be attested in another Algonquian language (or vice-versa), but they share components (‘shoulder’, ‘mouth’, etc.) • Reconstruct components instead of words • Components (not words) are the relevant semantic units, so comparing and reconstructing them and the principles of their interaction can be more enlightening than comparing full words 36

6. Conclusion • Goal: cross-family database of word components in Algonquian languages • Starting second year of pilot project • two 1-year grants from UW Graduate School • still in planning stages but have made progress • Submitting NSF grant proposal soon 37

wa͞ewa͞enen miigwech i gweyen kinanâskomitin woliwon thank you! hunterlockwood@gmail.com; mmacaula@wisc.edu; dhieber@ucsb.edu 38