Interviews | Muskogee (Seminole/Creek) Documentation Project

Vpoket ’punahoyvkēts! (Let’s sit and talk!)

In August 2015, the Seminole Nation’s Pumvhakv School began conducting video interviews of fluent Seminole and Muskogee (Creek) speakers. The following interviews have so far been recorded. We are currently in the process of transcribing and translating the interviews. The project will continue until the summer of 2022.

Staff and teachers at Pumvhakv School have been identifying elders to interview. Michael McCarty of Norman will shoot and edit the videos. Jack Martin at the College of William and Mary has been assisting with transcription and grant writing. Students enrolled in Bacone College’s Center for Tribal Languages have been working with teachers to add subtitles to the videos.

In the summer of 2016, these same students attended the CoLang Institute at the University of Alaska to learn more about language technology.

This is a collaborative project involving many individuals and institutions. We would like to give a big mvto (shout out) to the following:

Bill Barnett, Jackson Barnett, Ashley Bear, Linda Sulphur Bear, Leon Bell, Ryan Budnick, Jonas Burgess, Velma Coker, Assistant Chief Ella Colman, Linda Ellis, Elouise Factor, Nancy Fixico, Paul Fixico, Sarah Fredrick, Melanie Frye, Sue Givens, Chief Jerry Haney, Jerry Lee Harjo, Chief Leonard Harjo, Liza Harjo, Richard Harjo, Juanita Harris, Inna Ann Hickey, Alex Hicks, Yvonne Holata, Jennifer Johnson, Nadine King, Wotko Long, Senora Lumpkin, Sarah Martin, Deanna Mauldin, Jeremiah Maylen, Gloria McCarty, J. Michael McCarty, Juanita McGirt, Joanna Palmer Morris, Dorsey Nero, Rosetta Pebworth, Delaney Pennock, Kevin Roberts-Fields, De Lois Roulston, Eddie Screechowl, Frank Sewell, Wayne Shaw, James Smith, Robin Soweka, Lucy Tiger, Redmond Wolf, Sr.

Support came from the NSF-NEH Documenting Endangered Languages Program, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

We received additional support from Pumvhakv School and William & Mary.

Thlopthlocco Tribal Town generously allowed us to use a classroom to transcribe videos.

All video interviews and associated transcripts on this site are copyrighted by the principal in the video and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-ShareAlike 3.0 US License.