1. Customizing the IMDI metadata schema for endangered languages Heidi Johnson (AILLA) Arienne Dwyer (DOBES)

2. Introduction IMDI: International Standards for Language Engineering Metadata Initiative DOBES: Volkswagen Foundation’s Documentation of Endangered Languages initiative AILLA: the Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America

3. Types of resources Audio and video recordings in various digital formats Annotation text files, e.g. transcriptions and translations Standalone texts, e.g. dictionaries, poetry Wide range of genres: from verbal art to scholarly analyses

4. Bundles of resources Session (IMDI, 2001): resources resulting from a linguistic elicitation session - recordings and annotations. Only models one kind of resource production - a recording session. Collections will include a greater variety of resources, in sets of related materials.

5. Types of bundles Canonical bundle: the original session. A digitized recording, in different formats, and some textual annotation files, also in different formats. Minimal bundle: a single file. Examples: dictionary, poem, recording of uninterpretable chants. Meta-bundle: a bundle containing other bundles. Example: a book about a set of annotated recordings.

6. Bundle elements Current: –Name of bundle –Date and place of production Proposed: –Resource relations –Date archived –Last modified

7. Major subschemas Project Collector Content Participants Resources References

8. The Content Subschema Genre is the top-level category: –Interaction: conversation, interview … –Explanation: description, recipe … –Performance: narrative, poem, oratory … –Teaching: primer, textbook … –Analysis: grammar, dictionary …

9. Other Content categories Modality: speech, writing, gesture Communication context: –Interactivity –Planning –Involvement Languages Task Description Keys

10. AILLA’s Content Keys Register: a characterization of how the discourse reflects the social context. Example: honorific speech Style: about poetic and stylistic effects. Examples: parallelism, metered verse.

11. The Project subschema Current elements: –Name: a nickname or acronym –Title: official title –ID: a unique identifier –Contact information Proposed element: –Funder: name of funding organization

12. The Collector subschema AILLA renames this Depositor, since this is the individual we have to keep track of (e.g. for Level 3 access permission). When the Depositor is not also the Collector, Collector can be listed under Participants.

13. The Participants subschema Type: functional role, e.g. creator Role: family relationship Name/Full name Language(s) Ethnic group, age, sex: Education Anonymous: True if participant’s Full name is reserved; False otherwise

14. AILLA additions to Participants Origin: Place (country, region, etc) of origin of the creator of the primary resource in the bundle (e.g. the speaker whose voice is recorded). Occupation: Can be relevant in assessing accuracy of some kinds of data.

15. The Resources subschema Resources contains information about formats and provenance of files in a bundle. Media Files: audio, video, etc. Annotation Files: text files. Proposal: call them all Media Files, to reduce redundancy in the database. (All have URL, size, etc. elements.)

16. Text resources Current elements: –Type: type of annotation, e.g. phonetic transcription. –Content encoding: annotation encoding scheme, e.g. EUROTYP. –Character encoding: character set(s) used in a text file.

17. Text resources 2 Proposed elements: –Transcription type –Translation (aka Glossing) type –Software: used to produce transcriptions, translations, other annotations (e.g. Shoebox) Describe Annotator in Participants (along with Translator, etc.)

18. Proposed subschema Place: composed of several elements: –Continent –Country –Region –Subregion (address) Repeated at least twice, in Bundle and in Participants (Origin). Might also be useful in the Language subschema.

19. Conclusion IMDI schema is a flexible tool. Customization through Key/Value pairs allows local modifications. Most of the proposed changes are terminological, moving from the DOBES in-house terminology to more general usage.