The ODAAE Project: Why We Need a Dictionary of African-American Language

The ODAAE Project: Why We Need a Dictionary of African-American Language

Prof. Sonja Lanehart, The University of Arizona

Thursday, October 16, 3-4pm

Event URL: https://tinyurl.com/tfc6u3mu

ABSTRACT

There have been several dictionaries that tackled different aspects of language use in African American communities. Dr. Emerita Geneva Smitherman’s Black Talk: Words and Phrases from the Hood to the Amen Corner is the one I am most fond of, but there are several others. However, none has been anything like the new ODAAE Project spearheaded with Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). The ODAAE Advisory Board is comprised of several scholars in various fields related to language use in African American communities. The combined resources of the OED and the grants supporting it, as well as Harvard University’s famed Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, make this project not only special but a watershed mark in the research and scholarship on language use in African American communities. To illuminate this project and my perspective, I will discuss who is involved, what this is, where we are, how we got here, when to expect it, and why it is important to linguistics, research, and society.