1. Documenting Endangered Languages Claire Bowern Rice University and CRLC, ANU bowern@rice.edu http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~bowern (talk slides will be available from anggarrgoon.org)

2. Overview Documentation and Description Documentation in action  Types  Tools  (Illustrated with Yan-nhaŋu work)

3. Documentation Why endangered languages? Last chance for data Perhaps only one chance for data Many languages are endangered Techniques particularly developed by linguists working on these languages BUT, points apply to non-endangered languages too.

4. Documentation What is documentation?

5. Consider the following linguistic artifacts:

6. Language Artifacts Multilingual translations

7. DocumentationArtifacts Letters and Lessons

8. Artifacts Ritual Objects

9. Artifacts Items produced by linguists…

10. Artifacts Sound recordings

11. DocumentationDocumentation | Points to note Different audiences Accidental vs Planned “Raw” vs value-added More or less durable

12. Documentation and Description Description vs Documentation Himmelmann (1996):  Description: grammars, dictionaries, articles, etc  Documentation: a record of the language; some attempt to be “exhaustive”, or at least “representative” Systematising the creation of records (not leaving the artifacts to chance) Descriptions can be produced from documentations, but not vice versa.

13. Documentation and Description Why worry about the primary materials? After all, it’s the PhD/article/grammar that earns the linguist tenure/DETYA brownie points/a job.

14. Documentation and Description Why worry? Production of better theory/description Raw materials are useful in themselves  (e.g. data recorded for ref grammar may be useful for phonetics) Need to be able to go back to the primary materials (e.g. for corpus work) Ethical considerations – for endangered language communities.

15. Documentation in Practice A ‘documentation’ of a language

16. Documentation in Practice What goes into a documentation? Type of materials and their media (how it’s recorded) Genres of language (what’s recorded) Extent and purpose of analysis (what’s done with it) Quantity of all of the above Project: THE SPEAKERS (illustrated with Yan-nhaŋu)

17. Documentation in Practice (Brief intro to Yan-nhaŋu) “Salvage” documentation project (recording as much as possible in a form that’ll be useful to a maximal audience) Few previous records  Capell’s wordlist – NOT Yan-nhaŋu!  Bentley James: draft dictionary and texts, with a focus on marine resource management Few speakers 2-year project funded by ELDP (Hans Rausing Project)

18. Documentation in Practice

19. The documentation team: Yan-nhaŋu speakers and community members, in particular:  Laurie Baymarrwaŋa, Ŋamarrku ḻ i (Ŋarritjan), Margaret Nyuŋunyuŋu, Laurie Milinditj, Rayba Nyaŋbal, Rita Gularrbanga. Linguists, Anthros, others:  Bentley James (ANU), Salome Harris  Claire Bowern (Rice/ANU)  Vica Papp, Michelle Morrison (Rice)

20. Documentation in Practice Why? Little record of the language (of concern to speakers) Part of active movement to increase profile of Yan-nhaŋu at Milingimbi My historical research on Yolŋu (Yan- nhaŋu important and conservative)

21. Documentation in Practice Documentary Materials Audio Video Text Photographs (Old records and new)

22. Documentation in Practice Yan-nhaŋu Materials Concentration on text and audio (with some video and photos) Level of comfort with video (of researcher and consultants) Usefulness of outcomes (easier to process and to use in community) Video: weaving, manikay.

23. Documentation in Practice Materials: 1 speakerMore than one PlannedElicitation, translation, ritual Plays, scripted dialogue, ritual Unplanned (or semiplanned) Narratives, vernacular definitions, etc conversation

24. Documentation in Practice Yan-nhaŋu Elicitation Texts Semi-planned materials (e.g. MPI stimulus materials (video description), frog stories Manikay, Buŋgu ḻ (Songs, dancing) Vernacular definitions, Culturally important vocabulary (Little conversation) Non-linguistic documentation

25. DocumentationDocumentation | Samples of stimulus materials and fieldwork tools

26. Documentation in Practice MPI video clip

27. Documentation in Practice Frog story

28. Documentation in Practice Analysis/Derivatives Time-aligned transcripts  E.g. using Elan Linked materials  Import/Export b/w Shoebox and Elan  Interlinearised materials

29. Documentation in Practice Elan

30. Documentation in Practice

31. DocumentationDocumentation | Materials Community materials Descriptive materials  Learner’s Guide  Dictionary

32. DocumentationDocumentation |

33. Documentation in Practice Metadata ‘data about data’ Emphasis on documenting the documentation Important to know what’s been recorded, from whom, genre, extent of transcription and analysis, etc Materials in a format that others might be able to use

34. Documentation in Practice

35. Summary and Discussion

36. Documentation: Summary Some Features of Documentation: Not just language (also songs, cultural practices, ethnoclassification, etc) Multimedia/Digital Metadata Archiving provisions (NOT field notes in shoebox under the bed)

37. Documentation: Summary Problems A huge job!  Places (unreasonable) demands on the linguist, who has to be a sound engineer, botanist, anthro, community coordinator, web designer, etc, as well as Indiana Jones- type linguist.  Requires a huge amount of time to do a proper job. (e.g. tape transcription; 2 mins of transcription per hour) Huge reliance on dedicated speakers and community

38. Documentation: Summary Problems, cont the uselessness of knowing the right answer to the wrong question. (Ursula Le Guin) A large corpus might not contain the relevant data Or, it might contain it but the answer might not be findable Some problems only soluble with elicitation.

39. Documentation: Summary For more information: ELDP (http://www.hrelp.org) Essentials of Language Documentation (Gippert, Himmelmann and Mosel, eds) Linguistic Fieldwork: A Practical Guide (Bowern) Tools:  Elan: (http://www.lat-mpi.eu/tools/elan/)http://www.lat-mpi.eu/tools/elan/  Praat: (http://www.praat.org)http://www.praat.org  Toolbox: (http://www.sil.org/computing/toolbox/)