Fallon Burner Social Science
Healing Through Language: The History of the Wedat Language and Wadat Dialect
Fallon Burner will be writing a history of the Wedat Language and Wadat dialect, showing the vital role that language plays in the Indigenous community and how its history is tied to issues of erasure and survival, as well as the role that language revitalization projects have in addressing transgenerational trauma. The Wendat Confederacy, which originated in the Great Lakes region and now spans Quebec, Ontario/Michigan, Kansas, and Oklahoma, is a matricentered society where women have played heroic roles, so Fallon expects a uniquely gendered narrative. She will conduct oral history interviews with community members in Wendake (Quebec) and Oklahoma, and further her knowledge of the Wedat Language and Wadat dialect through language work, as this is vital to achieving more accuracy in historical narratives of the Wendat Confederacy.