Creating a Glossary for Six Short Ojibwe Language Stories
Mentor 1
Margaret Noodin
Start Date
28-4-2023 12:00 AM
Description
While reading texts written in other languages, glossaries serve as important tools to aid in understanding grammatical structures and to define and build vocabulary. Ojibwe is an endangered language spoken by some of the Ojibwe people of northeastern North America. It belongs to the central branch of the Algonquian language family along with Menominee, Potawatomi, and others. This project examines eight Ojibwe short stories published in the 1970s, seeking to create a comprehensive glossary of the words found within them. Although the Ojibwe text in the stories is accompanied by English text, it is rare that the parts of speech and sentence structures correspond exactly between the two languages. Because of this, the glossary will be a vital asset to learners of the language who wish to employ what they read themselves; providing resources to maintain orality is especially important while preserving less commonly spoken and taught languages like Ojibwe. To record definitions for the glossary, words from the stories are searched for in a digital dictionary composed of multiple smaller Ojibwe language dictionaries. The words, their prefixes and suffixes (when applicable), and their English definition(s) are placed into a spreadsheet organized by parts of speech and alphabetically to facilitate accessibility and comprehension. The final glossary will be put into a document and reviewed by University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee staff members familiar with the Ojibwe language to ensure accuracy. The project will result in a concise, easy-to-use glossary that will be an adequate resource for students learning Ojibwe in schools.
Creating a Glossary for Six Short Ojibwe Language Stories
While reading texts written in other languages, glossaries serve as important tools to aid in understanding grammatical structures and to define and build vocabulary. Ojibwe is an endangered language spoken by some of the Ojibwe people of northeastern North America. It belongs to the central branch of the Algonquian language family along with Menominee, Potawatomi, and others. This project examines eight Ojibwe short stories published in the 1970s, seeking to create a comprehensive glossary of the words found within them. Although the Ojibwe text in the stories is accompanied by English text, it is rare that the parts of speech and sentence structures correspond exactly between the two languages. Because of this, the glossary will be a vital asset to learners of the language who wish to employ what they read themselves; providing resources to maintain orality is especially important while preserving less commonly spoken and taught languages like Ojibwe. To record definitions for the glossary, words from the stories are searched for in a digital dictionary composed of multiple smaller Ojibwe language dictionaries. The words, their prefixes and suffixes (when applicable), and their English definition(s) are placed into a spreadsheet organized by parts of speech and alphabetically to facilitate accessibility and comprehension. The final glossary will be put into a document and reviewed by University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee staff members familiar with the Ojibwe language to ensure accuracy. The project will result in a concise, easy-to-use glossary that will be an adequate resource for students learning Ojibwe in schools.
