Cree Literacy Network

Happy Birthday Solomon Ratt!

There are too many candles on Sol’s cake to count this year. Hope he doesn’t set off the smoke alarm. For his birthday, he asked for new copies of his favourite dictionary, which he has used until they’re falling apart.

So today seems like a good time to present him with links to his favourite dictionary, now in online form through the University of Alberta, First Nations University and Maskwacîs Education. Learn more about the overall project and its contributing team here. Find the dictionary online at https://sapir.artsrn.ualberta.ca/cree-dictionary/.

You can look up words in English, or in Cree (in roman or syllabics). It even tries to guess if your spelling isn’t quite right. And for some words (the ones with the speaker icon ) you can even hear the pronunciation(s) of Maskwacîs elders. Another really cool feature is that you can click on the main word in Cree, and open up a whole Cree paradigm that shows you how these words are formed in singular and plural forms, and all the forms where somebody acts on somebody else (past, present and future). All of this depth creates a much richer version of the print dictionary.