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Welcome to the Mi'gmaq language wiki!

This wiki aims to provide a snapshot of some of the current topics in describing the grammar of Mi'gmaq that McGill linguists are working on with members of the Listuguj community. It is still a work in progress, so nothing here should be taken as the final word on the language, although we are doing our best to make it as accurate as possible. If you see an error, we are very happy to fix it, so please contact us through the blog or if you have an account feel free to fix it yourself! If you know something about Mi'gmaq and would like to contribute to the wiki, you can create an account using the link at the top right corner of the screen, although we would also love to hear from you in person. Please be aware that anything that is submitted to the wiki may be edited by other contributors.

A list of glosses used on this wiki can be found on the Glosses page. There are various resources online which provide definitions of basic linguistic terminology, for example this glossary of linguistic terms; see the "Linguistics Online" sidebar of the blog for more info.

Many of the articles in this wiki build on class projects that were developed as part of a class wiki for a field methods course on Mi'gmaq in Fall 2011 at McGill. Currently available and projected topics are listed below.

Background information

Mi'gmaq is an Eastern Algonquian language spoken in eastern Canada. For more information, see the article Background.

• Background
• Person and number
• Animacy
• Obviation

Sounds and spelling

There are several different ways of writing down Mi'gmaq. This wiki uses the Listuguj orthography, but a description of the various possible writing systems can be found in the Spelling article.

• Spelling
  • Writing Schwa
  • Long and Short Vowels
• Stress

Verbs

Verbs are used to describe actions, activities, or events. They are the central component of a sentence in Mi'gmaq and are made up of many different pieces of information. They contain enough information that they can represent a complete sentence, and are often the only element in a sentence.

There are several smaller pieces that occur in almost all verbs: the Verb Stems, the Finals, and Person and number marking. The person and number markings are often different depending on the final, as described in the following articles.

• VAI Intransitive Animate Verbs
• VII Intransitive Inanimate Verbs
• VTA Transitive Animate Verbs
• VTI Transitive Inanimate Verbs

There are other parts of the verb that are more optional, including Preverbs, Negation, Tense, Obviation, and Mood.

Nouns

Nouns are words that refer to persons, places, or things. They are the elements that do the action described by the verb or have the action done to them. Many Mi'gmaq sentences have nouns in them, but they aren't necessary.

Nouns can have several characteristics in Mi'gmaq, including Animacy, being Singular or Plural, Obviation, and being Absentative. Nouns can be modified by a variety of things, including Possession, Adjectives, Determiners, Numerals, Diminuitives and Relative Clauses. Pronouns can also be used to substitute for nouns.

Sentences

• Discourse Particles
• Questions
• Word order

Understanding and Editing this Wiki

• List of Abbreviations
• Style Guide
• How to do Citations
• Wiki gloss extension

• Consult User's Guide for information on using the wiki software
• MediaWiki FAQ

Mi'gmaq Language Resources

• The blog associated with this wiki, for project updates and more language-related links
• Mikmaq Online, which includes an online dictionary