Week of September 8

Summer Research With the WOLF Lab

In June, members of Dr. Tanya Bondarenko’s WOLF Lab traveled to the Alabama-Coushatta Reservation in East Texas to conduct fieldwork on the Muskogean language Alabama. Dr. Bondarenko, Ava Silva ('27), Jackson Herrera ('27), Romi Hill (PhD student at BU), Jacob Fernandes ('24, PhD student at NYU), and Nicla Marabito ('29) worked with tribal elders to conduct research on nominal and verbal morphology; morphophonological rules; tense, aspect, and modality (TAM); embedded and relative clauses; and more. They also led three community workshops focusing on various aspects of the language including pronunciation, greetings, possession, and some aspects of TAM and verbal agreement. 

The lab had a fantastic time living in the community and working with the elders and other tribal members, and is excited to continue this language documentation and preservation project. The Alabama Project team would like to thank the Alabama-Coushatta Tribe of Texas for their continued support on this project, especially the tribal members with whom the lab has collaborated on this most recent field trip as well as trips of years past.

Last year, the WOLF Lab also established a weekly Zoom session to provide Alabama language instruction to members of the community. This summer, the Tribe furthered this initiative by approving one paid hour per week for Tribal employees to attend these sessions. The Alabama Project extends its gratitude to the Tribal Administration and Tribal Council for their leadership in advancing this initiative and their commitment to expanding community access to Alabama language-learning materials.