William and Mary’s Mvskoke Language Patterns
2026 Library Publishing Showcase Week: Responding to the Community
Mvskoke Language Patterns by Jack Martin
Published by William & Mary Press
Mvskoke Language Patterns is a resource for those learning Mvskoke, a critically endangered language, spoken in east-central Oklahoma by members of the Muscogee Nation. Designed to help those learning their heritage language, it describes the alphabet and basic patterns speakers use in daily conversation, and includes a collection of phrases.
The Muscogee (Creek) Nation has 100,000 citizens, but only about 400 people speak their heritage language. There are online groups of mostly young people studying Mvskoke on their own, but they struggle with pronunciation and grammar. There are very few sources someone can use to study this language.
Working with a library publisher
I learned about publishing with the library through conversations with another colleague at William & Mary, Michael Halleran, who previously published with William & Mary Libraries’ WM Press.
Authors sometimes need more help with projects that don’t fit traditional academic publishing. This was one of them. I needed to be able to put out a first edition and to be able to easily update it. I also needed to publish audio.
William & Mary’s Swem Library provided very competent advice throughout the project, from choosing a publishing platform to editing Word documents for import into Pressbooks.
Opportunities for working with a library publisher
Working with a library publisher is closely tied to creating open source content. Open source content is more affordable, of course, but it’s also more accessible. That means that it has the potential for greater impact and reach. This was particularly important for this resource as Muscogee is also spoken in the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma (10,000 citizens) and within the Seminole Tribe of Florida (3,000 citizens). The opportunity for this resource to be shared and freely used to all those interested in learning their heritage language, and beyond, is possible with a library publisher.
Traditional academic publishers are interested in physical books and ebooks, but people who work with language want readers to be able to hear the language. That calls for a platform like PressBooks that can handle multimedia. Mvskoke is meant to be accessible, and also serve as a reference for how language is structured. Working with library publishing also easily allows Mvskoke to be expanded in coming years to include more topics with additional audio recordings. I worked collaboratively with the Muscogee (Creek) Nation to create this resource. Library publishing embraces resources created from collaborative work with various authors and communities.