Hello, I am a Penobscot citizen. I envision an emerging role as a linguist and educator in my community at Indian Island, even though I live in New Mexico today. With advances in technology and communications, I see an opportunity to develop technology-based methods to engage my home community and teach Wabanaki languages. I use the term Wabanaki in a collective sense and as a reference to the Algonquian related dialects spoken in present-day Maine and the Canadian Maritimes. The Penobscot community at Indian Island has been a crossroads village for centuries, which has had coexisting dialects of Abenaki, Panuwapskek (Penobscot), Wolastoqey (Maliseet), Peskotomuhkati (Passamaquoddy), and Mi’kmaq (Micmac). For most of the 20th century, the dialects of Panuwapskek (Penobscot), Wolastoqey (Maliseet), Peskotomuhkati (Passamaquoddy) were spoken distinctly by elders. They understood and could speak two or three of the dialects, and they could select and converse in a specific dialect. Those times have passed. Today, there are no multidialectal speakers, and very few speakers of any of the three dialects in my generation from Indian Island. Those who can tend to intermingle or blend the dialects.
My strengths are that I have historical, cultural and linguistic knowledges of Wabanaki peoples. I am a former Penobscot chief and a traditional singer. I have lived at Indian Island and at Pleasant Point, Sipayik. I have had the good fortune of immersive experiences with elders who were fluent speakers, some were born in the late 1800s and early 1900s. I carry the knowledge of older ways of speaking, as the dialects are still evolving. Additionally, I have taken Wabanaki language classes at the University of Maine and University of Southern Maine, along with other linguistic courses, culminating in a graduate certificate in Wabanaki languages. I am a Wabanaki speaker.
The learning environment would be community based and virtual, and focused on adult learners who are interested in gaining greater proficiency in Wabanaki languages. The adult community would span ages from 20s to 60+. Most adults have devices (smartphones, tablets, laptops) and high-speed broadband access to participate in tech based instructional methods and virtual sessions. This virtual environment would be my primary engagement with adult learners, and depending on resources, travel to Indian Island may be arranged for in-person workshops. There may also be hybrid sessions to be inclusive.
Teaching Wabanaki languages would not be a start-up endeavor. In fact, Penobscot language revitalization efforts have been implemented at Indian Island for more than three decades. The Wabanaki language program at Indian Island School (K – 8) has been the most consistent effort. Of course, that program follows pedagogical methods. The community-based Penobscot language program has generated some materials for online resources via the Penobscot Nation Culture & Heritage Preservation webpage, and short video segments of Penobscot language are displayed on public-facing monitors in some Penobscot government office buildings. However, there are no other offerings either in classroom settings or virtually for adult learners. In contrast, there are virtual classes offered in interactive video platforms, such as Zoom, by Passamaquoddy linguists Dr. Dwayne Tomah and Newell Lewey. Those classes draw Passamaquoddy, Maliseet, Mi’kmaq, and Penobscot adult learners; and are open to a wider public audience.
I have a sense for the actions needed to improve the Penobscot language revitalization. The existing status is worrisome, as the current program has not succeeded in developing a single proficient Wabanaki speaker. This does not mean that the language coordinators have not put forth valiant efforts. Evaluation of those methods should be conducted to determine the strengths and weaknesses of the overall program. One focal point would be to assess whether those methods are appropriate for adult learners.
My initial literature review has yielded success stories about Indigenous language revitalization programs, a growing field of evaluation methodologies for language revitalization, and language revitalization practitioners and evaluators. The Penobscot Chief and Council should oversee the evaluation process and engage an independent consultant with proven experience and results. One organization that conducts evaluations is the Indigenous Language Institute. This institute is based at Santa Cruz, New Mexico, which is north of Santa Fe, approximately one hour north of Rio Rancho, New Mexico—where I live. I would like to meet with the staff and learn more about their work.
Further exploration in the field of Indigenous language revitalization should be conducted. I would like to obtain Dr. Joshua Fishman’s book, Reversing Language Shift: Theoretical and Empirical Foundations of Assistance to Threatened Languages. Dr. Fishman provides the theoretical framework or continuum of eight stages of language loss. I am interested in using artificial intelligence, and am learning about scite.ai, which would enhance my research process and focus on scientific research. I would also like to learn more about the Attikamekw language program and its resources. This related Algonquian dialect is spoken by three bands of Montagnais peoples in Quebec. The Attikamekw—one of the Montagnais bands—has a fluency rate in their communities greater than ninety percent. I would like to investigate how this First Nation retains its language, and how its language resources are developed and deployed in their schools, community, and government. One of the challenges is that the Attikamekw have adopted French as their secondary language. I am not fluent nor literate in the French language.
There are additional reference materials that I would like to obtain and analyze. I would like to obtain the Grammatical Notes from Frank Speck’s Penobscot Transformer Tales, prepared by Paul Voorhes in 1979. This is a rare and expensive book. I would also like to purchase from Bison Books, The American Philosophical Society, Abenaki materials, collected and/or analyzed by Alfred Irving, Hallowell Papers.
The impact on the Penobscot learning environment and my personal growth in this endeavor would lead to gaining expertise in evaluating Indigenous language revitalization programs and creating frameworks for teaching adult learners their ancestral Indigenous language. This would align with the course central questions and outcomes. This new knowledge would help me to evaluate and reshape the Penobscot language revitalization program and reverse the trend of language loss.
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