Anishinaabe linguist Shirley Williams helped spark a resurgence of her mother tongue

Dr. Shirley Williams, who died in Little Current on Manitoulin Island on Dec. 19 at 87 years of age, was a linguist, language professor, activist, elder and knowledge keeper. For several decades she instructed and revitalized the Anishinaabemowin language at Trent University in Peterborough, Ont., a place known in her mother tongue as Nogojiwanong, meaning “place at the end of the rapids.”

She was a resilient, barrier-breaking professor who, in addition to teaching the language, authored dictionaries and lexicons, created curricula and wrote other works vital to the cultural resurgence and survival of her language.