John D. Nichols ’66, professor emeritus at the University of Minnesota, will present a lecture titled “The Ojibwe People’s Dictionary: A Public Digital Humanities Project for An Indigenous Language” on Wednesday, April 6, at 4:10 p.m., in the Red Pit. The lecture is free and open to the public.
Nichols’ lecture will focus on the Ojibwe People’s Dictionary, a free online archive and talking dictionary of Ojibwe (Chippewa), a language of the Western Great Lakes region. The project tries to balance the urgent need to document the language while it is still spoken with the need to present useful results of the research to stakeholders in the indigenous, scholarly and funding communities. The project also deals with issues of rapidly changing digital technology and sustainability.
Nichols’ major publications include The Translation of Key Phrases in the Treaties of 1837 and 1855 and the Concise Dictionary of Minnesota Ojibwe.
The lecture is sponsored by the Religious Studies Department, the Anthropology Department and the Humanities Forum.
