Language Signs
Welcome to our multilingual signage project, an ongoing effort to make shared community spaces more inclusive, accessible and welcoming through language. Designed for school and community gardens, land trusts, public parks and other educational or public-facing outdoor spaces, these signs support diverse linguistic and literacy needs while encouraging curiosity about the natural world.
Sample Sign and Audio Recording
Our signs currently feature three languages: English, Spanish, and Panawahpskek (Penobscot). Each collection of signs for a paticular word or phrase has a QR code that links to one of our subpages with audio recordings that demonstrate how each word is pronounced in multiple languages.
Here’s sample audio from our insect and animals page:
bee / ὰməwez / abeja
English
Panawahpskek
Spanish
Project Status & Future Growth
This project is still in its early stages. As capacity allows and interest grows, we plan to fill in gaps in audio files and hope to expand both the number of languages represented and the range of words and phrases included. We welcome suggestions for additional words, phrases, or languages and invite new partnerships to help expand this work and deepen our understanding of how these signs can be most useful to the communities they serve.
Accessing the Full Collection
The full collection of digital signage files is available by request. See below for the request form link. While the digital files are free, organizations are responsible for printing and installing the signs. We provide guidelines to ensure they are clearly displayed, honor the intent of the project and offer tips to help them endure in outdoor spaces.
Acknowledgements
We are grateful to the following individuals who have contributed guidance, talents, technical expertise, and their voices to help bring these multilingual resources to life: Alex Francis, Bethanie Brown, Brianne Lolar, Christina Lannan and Gabe Paul.
Crafting Words With Care
Creating these signs has been an incredible journey that continues to develop and evolve. Language is a dynamic means of communication and there can be many ways to interpret and translate words. The language-keepers and linguistic experts who have thoughtfully guided us have acknowledged the nuances within their languages and, in some cases, they have carefully selected one out of multiple suitable words to represent a feature within the garden. Additionally, in some cases such as with milkweed, words that have been lost due to the continued eradication of language and culture by colonialism were reconstructed. Through careful consideration and discussion, the language experts have crafted assumed close proximities based off of nearby languages. In this instance the loaner word of wiphunakson from Peskotomuhkati-Wolastoqey gives language keepers the descriptor of “feather shoe” with which to construct a replacement awihphónahksən.
Questions, Comments, Feedback
Contact Kate Garland at 207.942.7396 or katherine.garland@maine.edu.