The Penobscot Nation Cultural and Historic Preservation Department has taken on the role of Language Preservation since January of 2003. However, there have been many years of language work done in the community. Dr. Frank Siebert, a retired pathologist, came to Indian Island in the 1970's to begin work on the language. Frank, devised a written system for the traditional language and with the help of our current Language Master Carol Dana created the Penobscot Dictionary. They worked with many speakers in the community recording and documenting words , phrases and stories. These recordings were then digitized by the Cultural and Historic Preservation Department. Below are sound clips catagorized by speaker first, then by subject matter.  The sound clips are accompanied by the words, phases or stories written in English and in Penobscot. To properly see the Penobscot words written visit the Penobscot Language Toolkit to download the Penobscot font.

Speakers:

Andrew Dana

Carol Dana

Susie Dana

Arthur Neptune

Madeline Shay