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.

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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’

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Recent Headlines

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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

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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

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

language

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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.”

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Methods: Committee of Elders

• Waadookodaading Immersion School, Hayward, WI

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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

• f government (filibuster, bill of rights),

grammar (tense, conjunct, adverb) and many

• ther subjects.” (Aaniin Ekidong p. 5)

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Ojibwe Vocabulary Project

• 3-day meeting
• large group of elders
• most words agreed on in

groups; a few generated by individuals

• 128-page booklet

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Example: Ojibwe Vocabulary Project

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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
• f Algonquian derivational morphemes

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• 2. Background: Derivation in

Algonquian Languages

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Words in Algonquian languages

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Examples

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Examples, cont.

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Examples, cont.

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• 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)

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• 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

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• 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

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Component Cognate Sets

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• 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

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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.)

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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]

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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.”

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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

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Summer 2017 workshop

• Designed for community language learners,

language teachers, language activists

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• 5. Use in linguistics
• 1. Reconstruction!
• Bloomfield (1946):

reconstructed PA based

• n Meskwaki (Fox),

Menominee, Cree, Ojibwe

• geographically central

languages

• has more or less stood

up

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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…

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The alternative

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

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Use in linguistics, cont.

• 2. Comparison and subgrouping!

(Valentine 2001)

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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…

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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

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Lexical Lists

• ‘carry’ in Menominee

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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

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• 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

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wa͞ewa͞enen miigwech i gweyen kinanâskomitin woliwon thank you!

hunterlockwood@gmail.com; mmacaula@wisc.edu; dhieber@ucsb.edu

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References

• Baldwin, Daryl, David J. Costa & Douglas Troy. 2016. Myaamiaataweenki

eekincikoonihkiinki eeyoonki aapisaataweenki: A Miami Language Digital Tool for Language

• Reclamation. Language Documentation & Conservation 10:394-410.
• Bloomfield, Leonard. 1946. Algonquian. Viking Fund Publications in Anthropology 6:85-

129.

• Hewson, John. 1993. A Computer-Generated Dictionary of Proto-Algonquian. Hull,

Quebec: Canadian Museum of Civilization.

• Hieber, Daniel W. 2019. Data Format for Digital Linguistics. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.1438589.
• Leonard, Wesley. 2007. Miami Language Reclamation in the Home: A Case Study. PhD

dissertation, UC-Berkeley.

• Noodin, Margaret. To appear. Ezhi-enendamang Anishinaabebiigeng: Theories of

Anishinaabe Rhetoric and Composition. Papers of the Algonquian Conference 49.

• Treuer, Anton, and Keller Papp. 2009. Aaniin Ekidong: Ojibwe Vocabulary Project. St. Paul:

Minnesota Humanities Center.

• Valentine, J. Randolph. 2001. Nishnaabemwin Reference Grammar. Toronto: University of

Toronto Press.

• on-line:
• https://www.voanews.com/usa/coining-new-words-key-revitalizing-native-american-

languages (Jessie Little Doe Baird)

• https://qz.com/1632990/iceland-is-inventing-a-new-vocabulary-for-a-high-tech-

future/ (Iceland quote)

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