Potawatomi Language

The Potawatomi Language Scholars' College is an annual summer language program which addresses the need to develop new fluent speakers of Potawatomi. The primary goal of the College is to prepare adult Scholars to become community language instructors by increasing their fluency, teaching skills, and resources for self-guided learning. Scholars attend three-year progressive courses in conversation, grammar, writing, and teaching methods, gaining the skills and resources they will need to become successful teachers in their home communities. A secondary goal is to increase fluency within Potawatomi communities through outreach, developing community awareness about the language, and by encouraging ongoing language activities. A substantial amount of time in early fieldwork sessions was devoted to eliciting the very complex set of paradigmatic affixes. The reason for doing so is that understanding Potawatomi verbs is central to understanding Potawatomi grammar. My purpose in writing this note of caution is not so much for learners of Potawatomi, who probably won't encounter the problematic forms discussed here (or at least will probably not encounter problems as a result of the problematic forms). The real caution is in using these forms as data for theoretical arguments. The verbal system of Algonquian languages, particularly that of Potawatomi, has drawn a considerable amount of attention in linguistics ever since Charles Hockett published a modern theoretical description in the 1940's. More recently, Potawatomi has frequently figured in arguments for various theories of morphology (if a morphological theory can describe the complexity of Potawatomi, it should be able to handle anything!). While certain paradigms, such as the independent and conjunct indicative are quite reliable, others should be viewed with healthy suspicion, due to the likelihood of a variety of potential kinds of errors. Articles Engineering Newsgroups Usenet Usenet Newsgroups Newsgroups Server Colocation Music Lyrics

Potawatomi Language