Expanding Potawatomi Language Description with Documentation of Natural Speech (POT)

University Of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison WI

Investigators

Abstract

The goal of this project is to add to the relatively sparse documentation on the Algonquian language Potawatomi. This three-year project is based on a core activity, the recording (audio and video) and processing of a target of 54 hours of natural speech by fluent native speaker Potawatomi elders. This activity will both lead to and be complemented by a set of related projects, including the elaboration of our dictionary database, creation of a coordinated set of tools for language analysis, and the expansion of a partial grammatical sketch of the language created by co-PI Welcher in 1998. Potawatomi (or Bodéwadmimwen) is a critically endangered language spoken primarily in the Midwestern United States (Wisconsin, Michigan, Kansas, and Oklahoma). The dialect being documented here is Forest County Potawatomi, spoken in Wisconsin. Of the total 10-15 remaining fluent elder speakers of Potawatomi, nine live in Wisconsin, so this is the ideal place for such a project. Documentation which exists on the language is limited in quantity and scope, making further documentation all the more urgent. Existing records of unscripted connected speech include a small number of handwritten, partially translated narratives collected by Charles Hockett, scattered pedagogical materials whose spontaneity varies widely, and scattered recordings by community language activists. The addition of genres such as conversations, oral histories, and other types of discourse will round out our record of Potawatomi language use. Potawatomi narrative texts are significantly different from everyday discourse, even in terms of grammatical structure, and thus creation of a record of such texts will broaden the empirical basis upon which linguistic analyses can be performed. Systematic transcription, analysis, and archiving of collected recordings in consultation with fluent speakers will result in a primary language resource that will be of immense benefit to researchers, as well as to language teachers and learners. The project is the continuation of a collaboration between native speakers, community language activists, linguists, and a software applications expert, all currently working on a dictionary of Potawatomi, and it will result in additional materials useful to all of these constituencies. Because of the level of community involvement in the entire process we have a clear focus on producing a product that will be of immediate benefit to community-driven language revitalization. In addition, we will be working in parallel with a new Forest County Potawatomi community-based language documentation project inspired by and continuing our dictionary project.