Dictionary project to help preserve native language

While some native languages are in danger of being lost forever, J. Randolph Valentine, assistant professor of linguistics, is working with a team of dedicated scholars to help prevent the Ojibwe language from meeting that fate.

Valentine is part of an international project to revise and update a dictionary of the Odawa dialect of Ojibwe, originally compiled in 1985 by Richard Rhodes of the University of California-Berkeley. With Mary Ann Corbiere, professor of Odawa at the University of Sudbury in Ontario, Canada, Valentine is updating and expanding the dictionary.

“We’re adding more vocabulary, enriching the entries with sample sentences and building computer software to allow students more natural access to the rich structure of the language,” he says.

Valentine, who teaches Ojibwe at UW–Madison, says the two languages are vastly different.

“For example, in Odawa, the concept ‘fall down and break one’s leg as a result,’ is expressed with a single word, bookgaadeshin. This word contains three identifiable components: ‘book’ means break ‘gaad-e,’ leg and ‘shin,’ fall. Each of these word-components occurs in hundreds, even thousands, of verbs. For example, book occurs in ‘bookwaabdese,’ break one’s tooth. A dictionary organized by the simple alphabetization scheme used in English fails to capture the rich relationships that exists between Odawa words,” he says. Consequently, as part of the project, he is working on a computer-access system that will be more faithful to the structure of Odawa.

In addition to structural disparities, the dictionary team faces challenges presented by the variation among different communities, which reflect somewhat several linguistic and cultural heritages, Valentine says. To make the dictionary as widely useful as possible, the team is working closely with members of many Ojibwe communities along the shores of Lake Huron and points inland in eastern Ontario. In addition, Ojibwe-speaking elders and elders-to-be comprise a steering committee for the work, and offer suggestions for words to include, nuances of meaning and pronunciation preferences in their own communities.

Valentine says it’s often hard for infrequently spoken languages not to vanish as the so-called “global” languages like English spread far and wide.

“Odawa is a robust language, but few children are learning it to fluency. Lots of people would like to learn the language, but may not have a speaker or teacher nearby to consult. We hope the dictionary will be able to help in this regard — by offering a rich vocabulary, with many examples of usage, with a relatively standard way of spelling, so that teachers can share materials more easily, and students at all grade levels will encounter consistency as they progress in their study,” he says.

Valentine says the dictionary should be ready within the next few years. In the more immediate future, he will take part in the third annual language preservation conference in February 2001, hosted by the UW–Madison American Indian Studies program.

For more information about the conference, contact Ada Deer, director of the American Indian Studies Program, (608) 263-5501; aisp@aisp.wisc.edu.