First Nations communities in New Brunswick and Maine are celebrating the release this week of a Passamaquoddy-Maliseet dictionary.

The dictionary is being presented to the First Nations communities after three decades of work. The project began in the 1970s when organizers of an education program in Maine decided a dictionary was needed to keep the Maliseet language alive.

Members of the First Nations communities on both side of the international border contributed words and definitions.

Robert Leavitt, who became involved as a professor at the University of New Brunswick in 1981, said the dictionary represents a great collaboration.

"We come today with a dictionary that’s really based in the communities, and comes from the communities, and comes from sources that go back 125 years, really," he said Monday.

"It’s so revealing of the culture and history and so many factors of Maliseet life. I had such a wonderful experience proofreading. You can imagine sitting down and proofreading 18,000 entries. I thought, 'Oh, this is going to be a real chore.' But, as I read, all the culture of the communities and the histories just came welling up."

An oral tradition

Imelda Perley, a Maliseet speaker and educator, wrote a foreword for the dictionary.

"The elders are so excited. All of them, of course, being from an oral tradition, don’t know how to read in the language," she said.

"But they can definitely look at it and see this is what my language looks like. How beautiful because they’ve never seen it. To visually see your language is such a treasure."

The dictionary will be released Friday in Woodstock, N.B., next Tuesday at the Tobique First Nation and next Wednesday at St. Mary's First Nation in Fredericton.

A version of the dictionary is also available online at the UNB electronic text centre.