Interview with K. David Harrison

Technology news Web site Wired yesterday carried an interview with K. David Harrison, linguist at Swarthmore College. Titled “The Linguists Battles Language Extinction on Web,” the article discusses Sundance Film Festival selection The Linguists followed by a Q&A with Harrison. 

The movie documents Harrison and Greg Anderson, cofounders of the Living Tongues Institute, as they travel the globe to record speakers of moribund languages. 

The article may be found by clicking here.

Also, Harrison is interviewed by NPR at Saving Dying Languages in ‘The Linguists.’

Irish Gaelic Makes Inroads and Outroads

Gaeilge or Irish is the first national language of the Republic of Ireland, a status enshrined in the constitution. It is taught as a second language as a compulsory subject in government-funded schools and appears to be making a strong comeback as evidenced by its use in newspapers and broadcasts. While many speakers are proud of their language, there are also many naysayers more concerned about gainful employment where English skills are what count. 

In 2006, the Irish government moved forward with a plan to make the nation completely bilingual over a two-decade period, an amazing development in the field of endangered languages.

In the United States, a major destination in the Irish diaspora, people of Irish descent make up twelve percent of the population and Irish pride is common, particularly on St. Patrick’s Day.

Gaeilge classes are offered at many universities in the US, and now there is a weekly hour-long broadcast  (archives) offered in New York on WFUV that provides language lessons along with cultural and historical information.

Even social-networking site Facebook is getting into the Gaeilge act. Having translated more than 8000 terms in order to provide a full language experience for users, they have more than twice that to go as of January. Equivalents for such expressions as pizza toppings and (user) profile all must be decided on, and the Facebook approach is to use consensus to select terms, thereby increasing the scope of the Gaeilge vocabulary. 

The Internet offers a wealth of resources to learn Gaelige. Here is a selection:

• Daltaí na Gaeilge - grammar, forums, educational materials, class locations
• Ten one-minute lessons – subscription page, blog-style listening page
• YouTube – few of the Irish lesson videos seem useful. The Pimsleur series is an exception.

This article was inspired by the AP article “Radio show leads the way for Gaelic comeback.”

Vi Hilbert Passes On

Native speaker of Lushootseed turned scholar, Vi Hilbert, passed away on December 19. Truly cultural and linguistic trailblazer, she inspired many and insisted on sharing culture as a mainstay part of efforts to to maintain and revitalize local culture. Her language accomplishments include grammars, dictionaries, stories and 17 years of teaching at the University of Washington. From the Seattle Times’ article.

Digital Drum – Aboriginal Cultural Expression

With the support of the Department of Canadian Heritage, the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network designed a sophisticated Website last year to allow people to showcase their traditional storytelling, community traditions, music and other cultural activities.

Supported through the efforts of Executive Producer Wayne Clark, Producer Philip Djwa and a host of other talented people, the Digital Drum Website provides an interface for people to upload videos and post other multimedia content and hyperlinks.

For example, see Qallunajatut Urban part 2 to listen to watch Inuit traditional skills with an Inuit explanation and English transcript. Playing Eastern Tide: Mildred Milliea part 1, part 2 and part 3 tell the story of Mi’kmaq Native Dr. Milliea who has dedicated her life to preserving Mi’kmaq (mic). Explore these and other cultural adventures at Digital Drum.

Alaska Languages – Continuing Award for Collaboration

Last September, the NSF awarded the University of Alaska Fairbanks just over US$450,000, with Michael Krauss as principal investigator, to study 11 endangered languages in Alaska.

The languages to be studied (with Wikipedia and Ethnologue links) are: Han Athabascan (haa), Upper Kuskokwim Athabascan (kuu), Eyak (eya), Tlingit (tli), Southern Tsimshian (tsi), North Slope Inupiaq (esi), Central Alaskan Yup’ik (esu), Central Siberian Yupik (ess), Alutiiq (ems), Attuan Aleut (ale) and Kodiak Russian Creole, a language of approximately five speakers whose average age is 90 and apparently without a page on either Wikipedia or Ethnologue.

Krauss is joined by a host of prominent language researchers. Their names as well as other details of the award are detailed at “IPY – Documenting Alaskan and Neighboring Languages” as well as Veco Polar (second listing).

This blog entry was prompted by a Tundra Drums article and an EurekAlert article. The amount listed in those articles $1.2 million, and the Talking Alaska blog lists it at $1.4 million. The grant is a continuing grant, so the disparity in numbers probably reflects the way the calculation was made. (The NSF site lists three awards, totaling $1.06 million.)

To keep up with Alaskan and other endangered language issues, subscribe to  Gary Holton’s Talking Alaska blog. An article on Michael Krauss is available on Wikipedia.

Northwest Journal of Linguistics – open, online and peer-reviewed

The NWJL is an online journal focusing on indigenous languages of northwestern North America, providing peer-reviewed articles and open access. Designated as one of five hotspots in the world for language endangerment, the northwestern North America region will benefit from the exposure its languages receive in the Journal.

Started last year, the NWJL has a full editorial board including general editors Donna Gerdts, Timothy Montler and William Poser. With four issues in 2007, the Journal has handled prosodic hierarchy in Lushootseed (lut), verbal morphology in Santiam Kalapuya (kyl) and the resultive construction as well as stress in SENĆOŦEN (Saanich (str)).

Submitting authors retain the rights to their works, and they are encouraged to include diagrams and media such as sound files, taking advantage of the online format. The Journal is supported by Simon Fraser University.

Eyak Falls Silent

With the passing of Chief Marie Smith Jones on January 21, Eyak (eya) lost its last native speaker. Spoken in south-central Alaska, Eyak is its own branch of the Athabascan-Eyak language family, comprising about 20 Native languages in Alaska. She had worked extensively with Michael Krauss, a professor emeritus at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and founder/long-time director of the Alaska Native Language Center.

More about the family tree of Eyak can be found at Alaska Native Languages, which provides detailed information about Alaska language relationships. Eyak stories and recordings are available through the ANLC. Documentation including a glossary in extensive PDF files can be downloaded from Alaska Native Languages — Eyak.

News of Chief Jones’s passing was carried in BBC News, Alaska Public Radio Network, and WTOP News, among others, which provided much of the information for this blog entry.

Note about Krauss’s Native Peoples and Languages of Alaska map: In Talking Alaska, Gary Holton details how the Alaska language map (also found at Wikipedia) needs to be revised due to pejorative names and geographical problems.

Student job

Emily Bender at the University of Washington (Seattle) is looking for a student to help out with some research on Native American languages. Fluency is not required. Students need to have at least one year of study in a Native American language. A visit or two is required for orientation, but the work does not need to be performed at the UW. This is a paying position. Click on her link above to contact her for more information.

Software for Scholarship

Work is underway to better cross-analyze ancient texts using advanced software tools. This work is a collaboration called the Archimedes Project between the Dept. of the Classics at Harvard Univ. and the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science – see Scholars resuscitate dead languages.

The Archimedes Project specifically aims at learning about how the science of mechanics developed by looking at ancient texts. The outcome should be new tools that allow language data to be more accessible and languages easier to learn by computer.

One of the methods used is to examine Arabic translations of lost Greek documents and reconstruct the Greek. The software brings together a variety of tools that assist with this. One of the primary software programs is Arboreal, which allows you to annotate text using XML. (This Arboreal should not be confused with the linguistics program Arboreal that allows you to create syntax trees.)

Other tools developed include Donatus, which provides online analysis of morphology, and Pollux, an online interface providing a collection of dictionaries including Arabic, French, German, Greek, Italian, Latin and Sumerian.

This entry was prompted by the entry Reviving Dead Languages: A Promising Trend? at Alex’s Language and Society Blog.

Three news items

Doris Jean Lamar is the last speaker of Wichita: Tribal language fading away (includes a slide show in Wichita and English)

Director Conner of Tamastslikt Cultural Institute awarded money for hunting and language: Buffett Award money to be used for cultural projects

Washington Post article includes mention of Yawuru and Magati Ke (perhaps Marti Ke): At a Loss for Words