Audio Visual Documentation of Passamaquoddy (SIL code MAC)

Northeast Historic Film, Bucksport ME

Investigators

Abstract

Passamaquoddy has been spoken continuously in Eastern Maine for 9,000 years. It is the last surviving language of first contact in New England, yet it could be extinct within twenty-five years. A National Science Foundation grant will support an innovative project that will add a new dimension to language documentation and preservation by using filmmaking to reconnect the fractured bond between language, place, and community. Documentary filmmaker Ben Levine will film groups in sacred places to stimulate deep memory and extended group discourse, and bring the language back into the public forum. The goal is to reverse the loss of public discourse symptomatic of language extinction. Linguist Robert Leavitt will use the filming to analyze historical, ecological, and linguistic information important to Passamaquoddy worldview and identity for a dictionary that has become an important resource for a new generation. Northeast Historic Film will use digital technology to help avoid obsolescence of the archival material. The project offers historians, linguists, ecologists, sustainability designers and others access to cultural materials from a people whose survival skills shaped the American experience. The film may also show a new way to language survival for others.