Arthur Fisher


Arthur Fisher (Biigtigong Linguistics Advisor: Morphology; and Former Holder of Council's Language Portfolio)



Arthur Fisher carries within him a profound understanding of the units of meaning within Biigtigong’s dialect. If we think of these units of meaning as the building blocks – or the Legos – which make up each word in Biigtigong Nishnaabemwin, we can say with certainty that Arthur Fisher understands quite well how all of these Legos may – or may not – be assembled to create valid words within Biigtigong’s dialect of Nishnaabemwin.

The field of Linguistics which is concerned with the study of these Legos is called Morphology. And, technically speaking, these Legos are referred to as morphemes by the field of Linguistics. Arthur Fisher’s deep knowledge of Biigtigong’s morphemes, and of the manners in which these morphemes may be put together to form real and acceptable words in this dialect, has been an amazing gift that the reconstruction team has received in our work to reconstruct and bring back to life Biigtigong’s dialect of Nishnaabemwin.