Who We Are
As a child, David A. Francis (1917–2016) never wanted to learn English, but his love of language led him to fluency in both English and his native Peskotomuhkati. After serving in the US Army in World War II, he returned to Sipayik, in eastern Maine, where he served a term as tribal governor, and later as Community Action Program director, housing commissioner, and language curator and translator at the tribe’s Waponahki Museum and Resource Center. He contributed decades of research to the dictionary project. The dictionary and Portal are a tribute to him and his invaluable work.
Robert M. Leavitt began working with the Peskotomuhkati language in the 1970s and first met David A. Francis when he was curriculum developer for the Passamaquoddy bilingual education program at Indian Township. He is professor emeritus of education at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton, where he was director of the Mi’kmaq-Maliseet Institute (now the Mi’kmaq-Wolastoqey Centre). He has written extensively about Peskotomuhkati- Wolastoqey language, culture, and history, often in collaboration with David A. Francis.
Margaret Apt grew up at Sipayik, where her first language was Peskotomuhkati. Her work at the tribe’s museum and on the dictionary project have given her ideal opportunities to fulfill her responsibility to learn more about the language and to pass it on, along with Peskotomuhkati culture and traditions. For many years she taught Peskotomuhkati at Shead Memorial High School, in Eastport, Maine. As a wife, mother, and grandmother she is also passing on language and traditions through her family.
Contact
Terms of Use
The dictionary entries in the Portal are copyrighted © by David A. Francis, Robert M. Leavitt, and Margaret Apt. The video content in the Portal is copyrighted © by Northeast Historic Film Archive, Bucksport, Maine.
Video and linguistic content is solely for use in education, language and culture studies, and research.
Any material used or quoted must attribute the source as follows: “Peskotomuhkati-Wolastoqey Language Portal (https://pmportal.org); Language Keepers and Peskotomuhkati-Wolastoqey Dictionary Project.”
All material on the Portal is governed by agreements between the projects cited above and the Passamaquoddy Tribe.
Neither the Portal itself nor any of its contents may be used for commercial purposes.
The University of New Brunswick Centre for Digital Scholarship
The UNB Centre for Digital Scholarship, founded in 1996 as the Electronic Text Centre, created the Peskotomuhkati-Wolastoqey Language Portal and maintains it as part of its collection of online resources.
- James MacKenzie, Associate Dean of Libraries
- Jacob Sanford, Senior Technical Operations Manager
- Jeremy McDermott, Web Developer
- Jeff Carter, Manager, Systems Group
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