Talking Dictionary
LAWRENCE – By creating an online trilingual dictionary with a grant from Humanities Kansas to the local Centro Hispano, applicants hope to help descendants of immigrants from the Mexican state of Guerrero preserve their heritage and maybe even speak to their grandparents back home in the indigenous language Meꞌphaa.
That is Philip Duncan’s hope, anyway. The University of Kansas assistant teaching professor of linguistics serves as project director for the newly announced $3,500 grant titled “Preserving the Meꞌphaa Language in Kansas: A Collaborative Online Dictionary.” Duncan is one of several collaborators on the project, which also includes Eutropia Rodriguez, community member and Meꞌphaa speaker; Sylvia Fernández Quintanilla, a public and digital humanities postdoctoral fellow who serves as project consultant; Lydia Diebolt, executive director of Centro Hispano; and Tamara Falicov, associate dean of the KU’s College of Liberal Arts & Sciences and professor of film & media studies.
“This project will not only preserve important details about the Meꞌphaa language but also make accessible personal narratives, histories, songs and traditional texts from this community,” said Julie Mulvihill, Humanities Kansas executive director. “People in Lawrence and across Kansas will be able to learn more about the language and culture shared by fellow Kansans.”