Event Details

Speakers:  Samuel Akinbo and Mskwaankwad Rice, University of Minnesota

This presentation will examine the effects of climate change upon Indigenous peoples, their cultures and especially their languages, taking case studies from Africa and North America. Colonization, urban-rural migration, war and conflicts are some of the factors that contribute to the endangerment of language and culture, and climate change is entangled within these. Considering that the existence of Indigenous peoples is intricately linked to the well-being and survival of the biodiversity and natural resources surrounding them, global climate changes pose a great threat to the vitality of Indigenous cultures, traditions and languages. The implications of these issues for research communities, indigenous people and climate emergency organizations will also be discussed.

Samuel Akinbo is a community-based researcher with interests in phonological description, analysis and theory, syntax-phonology interface and phonetics. He has deep experience doing community-based research on endangered and under-resourced African languages. His approach to linguistic research involves considering language-external evidence for linguistic theory, so his research also focuses on language-music connections (e.g., talking drums) and language-based cultural aesthetics. Mskwaankwad Rice is currently a PhD student of Linguistics at the University of Minnesota. As an L2 learner of his heritage language, he is interested in all things Ojibwe (endonymically known as Nishnaabemwin in his home dialect) and it is his work in language reclamation that has led him to study linguistics formally.

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