(Montreal) A French-Atikamekw thematic dictionary was launched this week on the occasion of National Indigenous Peoples Day, the result of collaboration between a professor from Carleton University and the Council of the Atikamekw Nation. This initiative “does good” in the context of reconciliation with indigenous peoples, according to one of the project coordinators.
This is the second participation of Marie-Odile Junker, professor of linguistics at Carleton University in Ottawa, in the creation of a French-Atikamekw dictionary.
“It was the Atikamekw themselves who came to get me in 2013, asking me to help them make a dictionary,” she recalls on the phone.
In 2021, the professor and her team, made up of several writers, collaborators and elders from the Atikamekw nation, launched a first French-Atikamekw dictionary.
“Someone told me, she was crying: I never believed that I could have a dictionary like that of my language. Symbolically, it was very strong to have a printed dictionary of the language, says Mme Junker. After many years of effort, we can still manage to produce something that is good for people. »
The professor and her two co-coordinators, Véronique Chachai and Nicole Petiquay, are launching a thematic dictionary this time.
“It’s a dictionary that is organized by subject. We have over 220 themes and sub-themes. Obviously, we highlight the Atikamekw culture, so the relationship of people with their territory, the animals […] how Attikamek humans interact with animals in the traditional way of life in the forest, etc. “says M.me Junker.
Modern-day topics are also included in the dictionary, which is publicly available online, and in print.
“But we really emphasized here on documenting the worldview of the Atikamekw as it is embodied in their language,” says the linguistics professor.
The dictionary contains more than 12,000 words in the Atikamekw language spoken in three communities of this nation, located in Haute-Mauricie, namely Manawan, Wemotaci and Opitciwan.
Transmitting and preserving the language
Marie-Odile Junker says she does “participatory-action” research, the goal of which is determined by the desires and wishes of the people she works with.
In this case, the desire of the Atikamekw community was to “transmit and preserve the language,” says Ms.me Junker, who is also interested in the relationship between language and healing.
The professor specifies that Atikamekw is “one of the Aboriginal languages in Quebec that is still best transmitted to children”.
“It’s a dictionary that is remarkable insofar as there are definitions in Atikamekw,” she says. I don’t know of any native language dictionary that has definitions in the native language. Of course, we also have definitions in French. »
The dictionary’s editorial team is still working on several projects, including online courses, audio books and various resources concerning the Atikamekw language.
This dispatch was produced with financial assistance from the Meta Exchange and The Canadian Press for News.