 | Anishinaubae Thesaurus The Anishinaubae (Chippewa/Ojibwe) language has a beauty in the spoken word, a deliberate rhythm, simplicity, and mysterious second meanings. When Basil Johnston began teaching the Anishinaubae language, in the late 1960s, there were no related manuals or dictionaries that were suitable for beginners. To fill this void, Johnston wrote a language course and a lexicon to fill for the course materials. Now he has broadened this labor by compiling Anishinaubae Thesaurus , which goes even further to fill a deep cultural and linguistic void. This thesaurus contains a useful sampling of the 400,000 words that comprise the Anishinaubae language, and it is intended to be a practical reference tool for teachers, translators, interpreters, and orthographers. Basil H. Johnston was born on the Parry Island Indian Reserves in Ontario, Canada on July 13, 1929. He was a member of the Chippewas of Nawash First Nation in Ontario. He graduated from Loyola College, Montreal, Quebec in 1954. He was an author, storyteller and preserver of the Anishnaabe language. He was the author of 25 books and often wrote about Anishinaabe history. Five of his books were written in Anishinabemowin, the language of the Anishinaabe. He also worked at the Royal Ontario Museum in the Department of Ethnology for over two decades. He received several awards during his lifetime including the Order of Ontario and the 2004 National Aboriginal Achievement Award for Heritage and Spirituality. He died on September 8, 2015 at the age of 86. (Bowker Author Biography) |
