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Is Toolbox the linguistic equivalent of Nietzsche’s typewriter?

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There is an aphorism (apparently derived from Maslow 1966) that goes “if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail”. For some documentary linguists reliance on the Toolbox software program means that everything linguistic looks like an interlinear gloss. Toolbox (developed originally in 1987 as Shoebox by the Summer Institute of Linguistics) … Read more

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More stories from ELAP graduates

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Back in January I wrote a post about stories we were publishing on the SOAS Endangered Languages Project website about some of our alumni and the interesting lives they are leading after having graduated from the University of London. There are now nine stories available, with several more in the pipeline. If you want some … Read more

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Another one bites the dust (with apologies to Queen)

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The situation with projects focussed on the documentation and support of endangered and minority languages is starting to look, well, endangered, if not downright moribund. Apparently, Unesco shut down its project on endangered languages within the intangible cultural heritage area towards the end of last year. Volkswagen Foundation held its last DoBeS grants committee meeting … Read more

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ELAR update

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As of this week the Endangered Languages Archive (ELAR) at SOAS has 52 online deposits available comprising around 51,000 files. There are 12,700 data bundles in the online collection, of which 6,000 are available to any registered user and a further 5,000 require access approval from the depositors. The number of users is now 515 … Read more

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Cultural Encounters in New Guinea 1920s & 1930s

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Michael Waterhouse talks about historical black-white encounters in New Guinea goldfields late 1920s to early 1930s with rare photographs and shows a short silent film Cultural Encounters from the early 1930s including possibly the earliest footage from the Sepik and footage of early Gasmata and Bulolo singsings. Time: 6:30pm-8:45pm, April 11 Cost: $15/$10. Members/$5 Students … Read more

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New Guinea Between the Wars

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Michael Waterhouse will be presenting a talk on New Guinea between the wars at the State Library of NSW on 21st March based on his recently published book “Not a Poor Man’s Field. The New Guinea Goldfields to 1942 – An Australian Colonial History”. It will be accompanied by a film taken by his grandfather … Read more

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The latest stats at PARADISEC

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PARADISEC now holds 177 collections containing 7,516 items and 59,083 files that are 5.59 TB in size. There are 3,310 hours of audio recordings in the collection. The catalog of these collections can be viewed via the Australian National Data Service, or the Open Language Archives Community or the Virtual Language Observatory.

Since our last report, Nick Fowler-Gilmore, the Audio Preservation Officer in the Sydney office, has completed the digitisation of Calvin Roesler‘s tapes (CR1) the last of which were his 1959 recordings in Asmat. See the fieldnotes and a summary of the collection at http://www.paradisec.org.au/fieldnotes/ROES/web/ROES001.htm.

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APLL5 conference registration open

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Registration is now open for the 5th Austronesian and Papuan Languages and Linguistics conference (APLL5), to be held 4-5 May 2012 and sponsored by SOAS, Oxford University Linguistics and Surrey Morphology Group. The full programme will be available on the conference website later this week. Preregistration for the conference and (optional) conference dinner can be … Read more

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7th European Australianist workshop

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Candide Simard (ELAP) is organising the 7th European Australianists workshop 2012 which will be held at SOAS on 3-4 April. The purpose of the workshop is to provide a venue for the presentation and discussion on current research on Australian languages. As in previous workshops a theme is suggested: ‘Contact phenomena in Australian languages’. However, … Read more

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3L Summer School in Lyon, France, July 2012

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The fourth International Summer School of the 3L Consortium (Lyon, London, Leiden) will be hosted by the LED-TDR team (Langues En Danger-Terrain, Documentation, Revitalisation), members of the DDL and ICAR laboratories (University Lumière-Lyon 2 and ENS Lyon, France), from 1st to 13 July 2012. It follows on from the highly successful 3L Summer Schools in … Read more

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