Grant Will Help Efforts To Preserve Menominee Language

Efforts to preserve the endangered language of the Menominee have gotten a boost thanks to a grant that will help a University of Wisconsin-Madison linguist translate native text.

UW-Madison Professor Monica Macaulay, who has long collaborated with the tribe, is working with people fluent in Menominee to convert material written in 1928 into colloquial English. Macauly said the text includes sentences like, “Large were panthers’ teeth for eating man,” and outmoded words like “hither” and “thither.”

“Just like really silly stuff like that,” she said.

Macaulay has been awarded a $70,000 Baldwin endowment grant for the project. The grants are given to further the “Wisconsin Idea” of spreading knowledge beyond the borders of the university.

There are fewer than 10 fluent speakers of the Menominee language, all of whom are in their 70s and 80s. To try to change that, the Menominee Language and Culture Commission has produced two bilingual dictionaries and a children’s book. Native language is also taught at the tribal school.