Language Documentation

This paper is a result of collaborative work between language documentation, language technology and corpus-based sociolinguistics and includes both applied and theoretical research aspects. We aim at contributing to diversity linguistics by improving current methodology for the building of comprehensive databases for future research on endangered and little-studied speech communities. Applying language technology in language documentation helps us to create more systematically annotated corpora, rather than eclectic data collections. Ultimately, the multimodal corpora we create will be useful for quantitative investigations into synchronic variation and change in Kildin Saami.

Kildin Saami (Glottolog: kild1236) is a seriously endangered and under-described language spoken ac- tively by no more than a few hundred speakers on the Kola Peninsula in North-West Russia. Although the number of speakers is decreasing rapidly, recent language planning and revitalization attempts have opened new domains of language use, for instance in print, radio and social media (Rießler 2014). Changes induced by this language shift to Russian have been documented on all levels of linguistic structure in Kildin Saami: phonology, morphology, syntax, discourse-pragmatics and lexicon (Rießler 2007; Rießler 2009; Blokland and Rießler 2011) and variation and change in function words specifically are dealt with in Karvovskaya (2011), Zhivotova (2014a), Zhivotova (2014b), and Kotcheva and Rießler (2015). Rießler and Karvovskaya (2013) have argued (based on the use of focus particles) that not only shift-induced lan- guage attrition is responsible for synchronic variation and change in Kildin Saami, but language planning and the introduction of new (mostly written) domains of language use, typically occupied by language activists with puristic attitudes, can lead to “revitalization-induced” language change, too.

Our investigation into variation and change in function words is based on a comprehensive corpus of spoken or written text modi of formal or informal registers originating from speakers for whom we also have comprehensive speaker biographies. Our transcribed (in Standard Kildin Saami orthography) spoken text data as well as the written text data are stored in a similar XML format, using ELAN.1 The pro- gram allows for transcription, calculation of basic frequency statistics and the creation of concordances in addition to extracting, coding and preparing statistical analysis using R.2 Different to many endangered language documentation projects, which annotate manually or semi-manually, we apply more automated corpus data annotation, specifically a part-of-speech tagger based on finite state transducer technology and programmed in collaboration with the Center for Sámi Language Technology3 (cf. Blokland, Gersten- berger, Fedina, Partanen, Rießler, and Wilbur 2014+).

The quantitative evaluation of data from our corpus provides significant evidence for proving prelim- inary claims by Zhivotova (2014a) and Zhivotova (2014b) that the use of borrowed vs. native function words is not dialectal or the result of individual speaker preferences, but determined by the choice of text modi or registers: whereas the native formatives are used consistently in formal written texts, borrowed formatives occur most typically in informal spoken texts. Furthermore, the degree of speakers’ language loss is also significant: fully competent speakers use borrowed function words much less regularly, which is significant even in informal speech.

We can also show that “purist variants” (Rießler and Karvovskaya 2013) are relevant for sociolinguistic description. In small speech communities undergoing revitalization, such variants might, in fact, be the potential survivors of language variation and change. Therefore, the documentary linguist needs to be sensitive to all kinds of variation in the data in order to make the documentation as complete and useful as possible.

This document is an abstract accepted for presentation at the 6th Workshop on Sino-Tibetan Languages of Southwest China (STLS-2021) held at Kobe City University of Foreign Studies on September 7-11, 2021: https://sinotibetan-japan.com/stls/ We report on progress in interdisciplinary work using state-of-the-art technology for language documentation.

This paper describes a new methodology for testing intelligibility across closely related languages and dialects in a traditional oral society in Vanuatu. There are many reasons why it could be useful to establish how well speakers of related varieties can understand one another: such knowledge is relevant to language planning and policy making, and it can shed light on the dynamics of language contact. However, conventional approaches to intelligibility testing, such as ‘recorded text testing’ (Hickerton, Turner & Hickerton 1952; Pierce 1952; Voegelin & Harris 1951), are time consuming to score, and difficult to implement consistently. In Europe, fast and efficient intelligibility testing has been successfully carried out across closely related varieties (cf Vanhove 2014, Author1 in preparation, Schüppert & Author1 2011 a, b, inter alia). However, these methods assume that test subjects are literate and computer-savvy. The methodology discussed in the present paper adapts European methods to conventional ‘fieldwork’ conditions. In Vanuatu we trialled a picture task and a translation task. Although some words had to be removed from the final analysis, the experiment was  successful overall and we anticipate that this method can be fruitfully applied in other oral language communities.

From: https://goo.gl/6UkVG9

The Routledge Handbook of Language Revitalization is the first comprehensive overview of the language revitalization movement, from the Arctic to the Amazon and across continents. Featuring 47 contributions from a global range of top scholars in the field, the handbook is divided into two parts, the first of which expands on language revitalization issues of theory and practice while the second covers regional perspectives in an effort to globalize and decolonize the field. The collection examines critical issues in language revitalization, including:

language rights, language and well-being, and language policy;
language in educational institutions and in the home;
new methodologies and venues for language learning;
and the roles of documentation, literacies, and the internet.

The volume also contains chapters on the kinds of language that are less often researched such as the revitalization of music, of whistled languages and sign languages, and how languages change when they are being revitalized. The Routledge Handbook of Language Revitalization is the ideal resource for graduate students and researchers working in linguistic anthropology and language revitalization and endangerment.

stories told by Faruk Miah and Farhana Ferdous -

The SOAS Sylheti Project set out to develop a high-quality Sylheti-language illustrated storybook to help promote one of London’s under-resourced community languages, Sylheti, spoken mostly in Camden and around Tower Hamlets. Since Sylheti is not a written language today, printed media like this storybook are rare for Sylheti speakers, and we are hoping to encourage pride in the language for its speakers with high production values and cultural authenticity. -

*Please note that ‘fuaTae sillaito bag aise, aro duiTa kicca siloTi bashae’ as a whole is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. It may be freely reproduced provided no alterations are made, the work is not used for commercial purposes, and appropriate credit is given. ISBN-13 : 9780728604100 (print edition) -

https://sylhetiproject.wordpress.com/storybook/

En co-autoría con José Luis González Compéan. Este libro presenta una estrategia colaborativa para el desarrollo de proyectos de auto documentación de lingüística desde el punto de vista de las comunidades.

La metodología reúne a jóvenes hablantes de lenguas amenazadas quienes, junto con expertos locales y académicos, hacen uso de las redes sociales para desarrollar actividades y discusiones sobre sus lenguas y culturas. Además, trabajan en una plataforma que se adapta a las necesidades de cada proyecto y que permite:
1) La generación de recursos en la lengua (audios, videos, textos, e imágenes);
2) La gestión de los recursos en repositorios y archivos;
3) La movilización de los recursos a la comunidad.

Esta novedosa forma de documentación lingüística a partir de las nuevas tecnologías enriquece el trabajo en las localidades al apostar por la participación de los hablantes a trabajar por y para su lengua. De esta forma, la auto documentación colaborativa de lenguas amenazadas puede contribuir a la conservación y revitalización de las mismas.