Building a community‐centered archive for Cherokee language description, documentation, and reclamation

Abstract

AbstractIn light of recent calls for decolonial approaches to Indigenous language learning, documentation, and reclamation, we describe the creation of a digital archive initiated and sustained by community collaboration. We work with members of the three federally recognized Cherokee tribes to translate and analyze Cherokee texts. Cherokee speakers participate in the narrative commentary around these previously dormant texts. We find three ways in which a digital archive can be leveraged for language reclamation, description, and documentation, while being initiated and sustained by community collaboration: (a) by developing collaborative translation environments across communities of users, (b) by developing software engineering methods to build reliable infrastructure for the archive, and (c) by creating collaborative workflows that center community practices and design insights. Translating historically dormant texts for this archive creates a use‐inspired language act central to language description, documentation, and reclamation. The collective translation process of building this digital archive provides a sense of continuity that grounds language learning in use‐inspired practices. Going forward, we will continue to center speaker and community‐use‐inspired language practice as we expand the archive to support more types of community contributions and other languages.