Myra Michano (Biigtigong Linguistics Advisor: Syntax)



Over the past three years, our team has been working diligently on the reconstruction of Biigtigong’s dialect of Nishnaabemwin. Understanding the complexities of the issues and challenges, our team utilized all available resources to assist in completing this task. Myra Michano has been the biggest advocate for Biigtigong’s dialect, providing us with the vision and continually reminding us of the importance of our own dialect and our identity. She provided inspiration and was always a source of encouragement and direction.

As a first-speaker of Biigtigong Nishnaabemwin, Myra Michano has been a key Linguistics Advisor concerning the Syntax of Biigtigong’s dialect. Syntax is a field of Linguistics which is concerned with the proper ordering of words within a sentence in order to achieve what is called “grammatical correctness” in the communication of meaning within a particular dialect or language. Myra Michano has ensured that all of the work and research that has been conducted on Biigtigong’s dialect is grammatically correct, and thus syntactically sound.

Over these past three years, Myra’s excited willingness and free-spirited openness to an almost never-ending series of questions by John Paul Montano on how to correctly say things in Biigtigong’s dialect has made her immense contributions to the Biigtigong dialect reconstruction project a true gift to the initiative.