LABRADOR AND THE DICTIONARY OF NEWFOUNDLAND ENGLISH

Abstract

OVER THE PAST COUPLE OF YEARS, the English Language Research Centre has fielded a number of inquiries about the representation of Labrador in the Dictionary of Newfoundland English (DNE; Story, Kirwin and Widdowson 1982). This paper reports on some of the Labrador and Labrador-related terms in the DNE. These terms can be divided loosely into three categories: Newfoundland English terms that are Labrador-related; terms for flora and fauna belonging to Labrador; and words from Labrador's two aboriginal languages, Inuttitut (spoken by the Inuit) and Innu-aimun (formerly called Montagnais-Naskapi), and spoken by the Innu. The Labrador Virtual Museum (http://www.labradorvirtualmuseum.ca/) is a good resource for more background  as is the Innu Language Project (ILP, Department of Linguistics, Memorial University; see www.innu-aimun.ca) which published the Innu-English Dictionary and the English-Innu Dictionary in 2013.