Uncategorized – Page 8 – Endangered Languages and Cultures

Distinguishing language documentation and language description, revisited: LIP discussion

22 August 2012 by Nick Thieberger

The distinction between language documentation and language description: a LIP discussion, Ruth Singer recaps last night’s Linguistics in the Pub, a monthly informal gathering of linguists in Melbourne to discuss topical areas in our field.

Last Monday’s debate about the distinction between language documentation and language description inspired by a recent article on the topic by Nikolaus Himmelmann in Language documentation & Conservation:
Himmelmann, Nikolaus P. 2012. Linguistic Data Types and the Interface between Language Documentation and Description. Language Documentation & Conservation 6. 187-207

The discussion was led by Rachel Nordlinger and Nick Thieberger from the University of Melbourne. Also commenting on the debate was Eva Schultze-Berndt, visiting Melbourne Uni from the University of Manchester, via Kununurra and Cairns.

Summer research scholarships!

21 August 2012 by Jane Simpson

AIATSIS/ANU Summer Research Scholarship Program 2012/13 CLOSING DATE 31 AUGUST The ANU School of Language Studies (SLS) and the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island Studies (AIATSIS) are pleased to announce they will co-host two Summer Research Scholars in the 2012/13 round. Outstanding undergraduate and honours students working on Australian languages are encouraged … Read more

New book and launch

6 August 2012 by Jane Simpson

Talk, Text and Technology: Literacy and social practice in a remote Indigenous community by Inge Kral (The Australian National University) has just been published by Multilingual Matters in Britain. It is an ethnography of language, learning and literacy in the Ngaanyatjarra Lands communities of south-east Western Australia. This study traces the Ngaanyatjarra from the introduction … Read more

Languages and language policy of Timor Leste

1 August 2012 by Jane Simpson

Kirsty Sword Gusmão gave a terrific public lecture Language, language policies and education in Timor-Leste on 20th July at ANU. You can watch the talk here. Key points for me were: her passionate commitment to expanding opportunity for Timor-Leste’s children through education her belief that mother tongue medium instruction in the early years is a … Read more

More new tools and methods

19 July 2012 by Nick Thieberger

I’ve been attending the Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations (ADHO) Digital Humanities (DH) workshops and conference in Hamburg (which has 510 registrants) and have learned about a number of new tools and methods for working with text, images, and media, often with large collections of primary sources that can only be analysed computationally. On the way here I called in at the MPI in Nijmegen and heard a presentation (pdf is here) by Peter Withers about the new tool they have produced called KinOath (http://www.lat-mpi.eu/tools/tools/kinoath), software for mapping kinship relations.

Australian Aboriginal Languages Virtual Library

27 June 2012 by admin

David Nathan’s Virtual Library for Australian Aboriginal Languages has just been updated with about 50 new items added to the catalogue. There are now 310 resources listed, for about 100 languages. David has also added a custom full-text search facility which enables users to search for materials by typing any text in most fields of … Read more

Hunting the collectors

22 May 2012 by Nick Thieberger

A major motivation for PARADISEC has been locating and digitising analog recordings before they are lost. As can be seen from various posts to this blog reporting on the progress of the collection (for 2006, for 2007, for 2008, and for 2011) we have steadily accessioned collections that would otherwise have become unplayable. We have … Read more

Very Long Track to the Other Side

19 May 201219 May 2012 by Jane Simpson

Road construction sometimes means new names, new opportunities.. The Kempsey bypass project includes a bridge over the Macleay River and Floodplain which, at 2 kilometres long on completion, will be the longest bridge in Australia. So Yapang Gurraarrbang Gayandigayigu Very Long Track to the Other Side…. This is the neat name which, so Amanda Lissarague … Read more

Discussion about Social Variation and Language Documentation: LIP Discussion

1 May 2012 by Nick Thieberger

Ruth Singer recaps some of the interesting points of the last week’s Linguistics in the Pub, an informal gathering of linguists and language activists that is held monthly in Melbourne

The announcement for this month’s Linguistics in the Pub outlined the topic as follows:
The aim of language documentation, broadly speaking is to document linguistic diversity. At one level the diversity refers to the range of languages and dialects that are used. But zooming in a bit closer diversity can be understood to refer to the variation in how language is used across different speakers and contexts, i.e. social variation. Despite the close link between linguistic diversity and social variation, variation is often viewed mainly as a problem in initial stages of documenting and describing a language. It is more challenging to describe a system of phonology, grammar or morphology when it varies widely, than to describe a system with little variation. For this reason, it is often only after documenting one variety that linguists usually try to document broader socialvariation and patterns of language use. In this session, we will look at some good examples of documentation of linguistic variation and discuss how we might include some aspects of social variation in language documentation projects right from the start.

Big Boss: Race against Time

26 April 2012 by Jane Simpson

Update on Laurie Baymarrwangga, Senior Australian of the Year, 2012 and patron of the Crocodile Islands Rangers. Her life story ‘Big Boss: Race against Time’ will screen on Sunday the 13th of May at 1.30pm on the ABC’s Message Stick Program. And here’s a bit about it from Bentley James, Crocodile Islands Rangers. 95 years … Read more