Documentation Of Endangered Languages Research Articles

A Preliminary Sketch of Phonology of Limbu Spoken in Sikkim

This paper aims to provide a preliminary sketch of Limbu phonology based on the field recordings conducted under an ongoing Sikkim’s Endangered Language Documentation Project (SELDP) in Sikkim University, India. In the Limbu variety spoken in Sikkim there are 18 consonant phonemes that contrast in the manner and place of articulation. A complementary distribution is observed between various pairs, especially between voiceless and voiced obstruents. Limbu has 11 monophthongs but lacks diphthongs. The canonical form of a syllable is (C)(C)V(C). The rule that regulates syllabication is the Maximal Onset rule. This paper focuses on the analysis of phonological and syllabification rules followed by the language.

Developing a Shared Task for Speech Processing on Endangered Languages

Advances in speech and language processing have enabled the creation of applications that could, in principle, accelerate the process of language documentation, as speech communities and linguists work on urgent language documentation and reclamation projects. However, such systems have yet to make a significant impact on language documentation, as resource requirements limit the broad applicability of these new techniques. We aim to exploit the framework of shared tasks to focus the technology research community on tasks which address key pain points in language documentation. Here we present initial steps in the implementation of these new shared tasks, through the creation of data sets drawn from endangered language repositories and baseline systems to perform segmentation and speaker labeling of these audio recordings—important enabling steps in the documentation process. This paper motivates these tasks with a use case, describes data set curation and baseline systems, and presents results on this data. We then highlight the challenges and ethical considerations in developing these speech processing tools and tasks to support endangered language documentation.

Gender in Ninilchik Russian: A morphosyntactic account

Abstract This work presents a first morphosyntactic account of the category gender in Ninilchik Russian, a highly-endangered dialect of Russian, within the framework of Distributed Morphology. Furthermore, it compares gender in Ninilchik Russian with that of Contemporary Standard Russian. I show that, unlike Standard Russian, Ninilchik nouns have no grammatical gender features on the nominal head. Masculine is the default grammatical gender. Human nouns, however, can be assigned feminine gender through the context, which is determined by the natural gender (sex) of the referent. The investigation is multi-disciplinary. The anticipated results will be of interest to theoretical linguists, language typologists, language-area specialists, and language educators. Since Ninilchik Russian is on the verge of extinction, the findings will also be relevant to the fields of education and endangered language documentation, maintenance, and revitalization.

Folk perception of variation in Cavite Chabacano

AbstractCavite Chabacano, an endangered creole language spoken in Cavite City, Philippines, has dialectal variation that can be traced to the settlement patterns established by the Spanish during the colonial era. This study focuses on Cavite Chabacano speakers’ metalinguistic awareness of dialectal variation, what their attitudes are toward it, and how they believe the different dialects are influenced by the superstrate Spanish or the substrate Tagalog. Participants’ comments during a map-labeling task show where Chabacano is still believed to be spoken and reveal that they have high metalinguistic awareness of variation in the vowel system and in second person pronoun usage. The Chabacano spoken in the San Roque district is perceived to have the closest relationship to Spanish, despite having more substrate influence in the vowel system. This study demonstrates the usefulness of perceptual dialectology for endangered language documentation and for studying variation and language attitudes in small communities and creole or other multilingual settings.

The cultures of Native North American language documentation and revitalization

ABSTRACTThe reviewed books comprise an emerging ethnographic literature on endangered language documentation and revitalization in Native North America. Language loss and preservation are pressing concerns for tribal communities, galvanizing activists and researchers to develop classroom curricula and literacy traditions in hopes of producing new speakers. While the reviewed books show that this goal often goes unrealized, we nevertheless read them as grounds for optimism. Even if language revitalization rarely increases the everyday use of particular lexical and grammatical codes, it may succeed in accomplishing another important goal: facilitating indigenous communities’ efforts to create for themselves more meaningful contemporary cultures.

A sociolinguistic study of the Baram language

This paper reports on a sociolinguistic study of the Baram language undertaken as a part of the Linguistic and Ethnographic Documentation of the Baram Language (LEDBL) project funded by the Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Documentation Programme (HRELDP) and hosted by the Central Department of Linguistics at Tribhuvan University in Nepal. This study, carried out in different Baram-speaking areas in the Gorkha District (Western Nepal), is based on the analysis of data collected by the LEDBL team between May 2007 and April 2010, employing tools such as sociolinguistic questionnaires and Swadesh Wordlist, as well as interpersonal interactions and conversations with members of the Baram community and Baram language consultants.The main objectives of this sociolinguistic study were to: Identify the areas of Baram settlement; Gather information about Baram speakers; Collect details about various sociolinguistic aspects of the language such as the language name, language variation, knowledge and use of the language, language attitudes, vitality and maintenance, and the level of language endangerment.

Immediate before the verb focus position in Nsong (Bantu B85d, DR Congo)

Nsong is a western Bantu language spoken in the neighbourhood of Kikwit (5°2'28"S 18°48'58"E, Kwilu District, Bandundu Province, DRC) and encoded as B85d in the New Updated Guthrie List (Maho 2009). To this B80 or Tiene-Yanzi group also belongs Mbuun, encoded as B87 by Guthrie (1971: 39) and spoken in the wider vicinity of Idiofa (4°57'35"S 19°35'40", Kwilu District, Bandundu Province, Democratic Republic of the Congo). Both languages are closely related. They share a high percentage of fundamental and other vocabulary as well as several rather atypical phonological innovations (Bostoen & Koni Muluwa 2014; Koni Muluwa 2014; Koni Muluwa & Bostoen 2012). Preliminary elicitation-based research on Mbuun has pointed out that the pre-verbal domain plays a crucial role in the marking of argument focus in Mbuun (Bostoen & Mundeke 2011, 2012). In this paper, we assess whether this is also the case in Nsong on the basis of a text corpus which the first author has been collecting, transcribing and annotating in 2013 and 2014 as part of an endangered language documentation project funded by the DoBeS program of the Volkswagen Foundation through a 3-year grant (2012-2015). More information on the project can be found on http://www.kwilubantu.ugent.be/. This Nsong text corpus exclusively consists of oral discourse and currently counts 48.022 tokens and 11.973 types. The team’s 2013 fieldwork aimed at documenting Nsong speech events in as many different cultural settings as possible. As a result, the corpus comprises different text genres, such as political speeches, historical traditions, folk music, tales, proverbs, hunting language, ceremonial language used during circumcision and twin rites, and popular biological knowledge. In line with previous research on Mbuun, we concentrate here on mono-clausal argument focus constructions, even if preliminary research has pointed out that bi-clausal focus structures are more common in the Nsong corpus.

Linguistic Expedition to Kamchatka Documenting the Koryak Language, December 2012–August 2013

This project is titled “Koryak Ethnopoetics: Stories from Herders and Maritime Villagers” and emerges from my long interest in oral narratives in Koryak. It is funded by a grant from the Endangered Language Documentation Project (ELDP).1 The general goal of the project is to document spoken Koryak, especially oral narratives, primarily by speakers of less studied dialects. Koryak varies quite a bit from one dialect to another, and this project will provide a better set of linguistic data for Koryak. In my previous fieldwork, I found that many people wanted me to share the realities of their traditions, their stories, their lives with the wider world. More Koryaks are concerned about having their name spelled correctly in my publications than being anonymous. This documentation project is ultimately about addressing the inequalities of voice as discussed by Dell Hymes (1996). I have found it rare that my academic research makes a real difference in people’s lives. However, that is exactly the feeling I got when talking to Koryaks about our documentation project in northern Kamchatka; it is work that makes a difference for many people in Kamchatka. Indigenous Kamchatkans face great struggles to have their voices heard but soon there will be an open and easily accessible archive of nearly 200 hours of what they want to say. The majority of participants we recorded had the goal of putting their native born language on record. They wanted their language, the language that their grandchildren don’t understand, recorded so that someone, anyone could hear it even after their death. Most people we approached had a clear sense of legacy. A few treasured the opportunity to speak with with my research partner, who was an excellent conversational partner in Koryak and is honestly interested in what the elder had to say.

Ideologies of descent in linguistics and law

Contemporary jurisprudence of self-determination draws on a trope of European conjectural anthropology, the Stammbaum, as it surfaces in documentary linguistics. This essay traces the work of linguist Ken Hale in Australia, first in linguistic phylogeny, later in endangered language documentation. It argues that linguists’ linguistic ideology supports multiple metaphysics of collective legal persona: one in which shared speakership is diacritic of group cohesion, two in which possession of language as a kind of property is central to collective flourishing. It juxtaposes linguists’ interventions in Australian indigenous land claims with recent debates among cultural property theorists as to the limits of property, and it proposes that linguists take a more active role in these debates. [Stammbaum; Australia; native title; cultural environmentalism; Locke, Kenneth Hale (1934–2001)]

Endangered Languages of Austronesia (review)

Reviewed by: Endangered Languages of Austronesia Aone van Engelenhoven Endangered Languages of Austronesia. Edited by Margaret Florey. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. Pp. xiv + 304. $165.00 (cloth). Margaret Florey is well-known among fellow Austronesianists for her continuing and successful efforts to defend the linguistic rights of communities whose languages are truly small and often very endangered. This book fully meets the expectations that her name raises. The book contains four parts. Part 1 is an overview, with an introduction by Florey and a chapter on language documentation in the West Austronesian world and Vanuatu by Alexander Adelaar. Part 2 discusses linguistic vitality, while part 3 contains information on several initiatives related to capacity building and revitalization. Part 4 focuses on pedagogical approaches to revitalization and maintenance. In her introduction, Florey notes that she coined the term "Austronesia" to refer to insular Southeast Asia and Oceania, where most Austronesian languages are spoken, [End Page 81] with Madagascar off the eastern coast of Africa added as a kind of Austronesian exclave. Adelaar's chapter shows that it would be a mistake to interpret the term as implying a geographical unity, since "Austronesia" covers a multitude of different nations with different traditions and perceptions. Adelaar introduces the Austronesian language family and provides a concise overview of projects on endangered languages in the Austronesian-speaking world—from the island of Madagascar east of Africa to the island republic of Vanuatu east of Australia. So many different languages cannot possibly be covered in one chapter; Adelaar confines himself to projects for which information was accessible either through the Internet sites of their funders or through publications by their project members. No attention is given to mainland Southeast Asia, where Austronesian languages are a minority, although Adelaar does provide information about Austronesian language projects in Sri Lanka, the Comoros, the Netherlands, and Surinam. Adelaar discusses the major organizations involved in language documentation, many of which are based outside of the Austronesian-speaking regions. Although he mentions the efforts undertaken by the Indonesian National Language Center, he overlooks the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek, NWO), which Margaret Florey and Nikolaus P. Himmelmann quote in their contribution and which has a long and successful tradition of cooperation with the Language Center on endangered language research in Indonesia, as evidenced by the many publications of the Indonesian Linguistics Development Projects (ILDEP). Adelaar summarizes the state of the art in endangered language documentation in Madagascar, Malaysia, Brunei, Taiwan, the Philippines, East Timor, and Vanuatu. He gives somewhat more extended coverage to the diaspora, since the case studies come from a variety of places around the world, and, of course, to Indonesia, due to its geographical size. Part 2 treats the theory of linguistic vitality and its assessments and challenges. Three of its chapters discuss languages in Indonesia, and the fourth discusses Negrito languages in the Philippines. Nikolaus P. Himmelmann's chapter is one of the most significant contributions for understanding the process for language endangerment and loss. He introduces the term "language endangerment scenario," by which he means "a specific and complex constellation of varied factors of language endangerment" (p. 45). He distinguishes symptoms and factors of language endangerment. He introduces two endangerment scenarios, the immigration scenario and the emigration scenario, using the Tomini-Tolitoli languages of Sulawesi Island as an example. He goes on to distinguish "moribund" from "endangered" and "long-term endangered" languages. He compares his characterizations of language endangerment with the information on Buru in the subsequent chapter, which confirms the usefulness of the scenario approach for endangered language research. Himmelmann concludes that a typology of endangerment scenarios is required that enables a systematization of the arrays of factors that lead to large scale language shift. Charles E. Grimes approaches language death in Eastern Indonesia by detailed consideration of two languages, Hukumina and Kayeli, spoken on Buru Island in the Indonesian province of Maluku. He grounds his examination of how these languages became extinct in a discussion of the history and present-day language ecology on the island, including a short anthropological digression on power and place on the island; he then seeks similar scenarios elsewhere in Central Maluku. Finally...

Archives 2.0 for endangered languages: From disk space to MySpace

The salient features of endangered language documentation are diversity and protocol. The Endangered Languages Archive at SOAS is creating a new archive to take advantage of web-based social networking to address these issues. The archive is reconceived as a platform for conducting relationships between information providers (depositors) and information users, using the now-familiar idiom of Facebook. Rather than the archive having to continually broker complex access conditions, depositors and requesters can negotiate directly with each other via the archive to achieve more flexible and creative outcomes.

Documentation of Endangered Language Via ICT: An Assessment of the “Owerri/Igbo” Language

Documentation of a language portrays the beauty and richness of that language. It safeguards our values and experiences, our stories and artifacts and encourages continuity. The world is dynamic, it is going global; the introduction of the information communication Technology (ICT) into the Nigerian System is a new trend that is eating deep into the fabrics of our nation. With this trend there is the possibility of many Nigerian indigenous languages going into extinction faster than expected. This paper thus, becomes a priority, to change the continued indigenous language shift and to encourage linguistic preservation through saving and documenting the “Owerri” Igbo language. The study therefore, X-rays the potential benefits of using information communication in the promotion and documentation of endangered language, and proffers some suggestions on its actualization. Key Words: Documentation, language endangerment, ICT