Elena Pojman
Endangered language documentation and preservation is a broad field that includes the contributions of anthropologists, linguists, language educators, and speakers of endangered languages alike. However, there is not a consensus on how to most effectively organize and archive language data. This project seeks to create an inclusive online training course using a curriculum built around nine simple steps for archiving language documentation data created by the Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America (AILLA) and based on current best practices for language documentation and digital archiving. Keeping in mind the disparate accessibility needs of our potential users, we first identified and evaluated existing training platforms and are now building a pilot site to teach our curriculum for archiving endangered language data. Our archives-neutral course will empower language documenters of all educational levels to easily and efficiently archive their endangered language data in order to ensure their preservation for future generations of language speakers, teachers, learners, and researchers.
Comments
This is really interesting! Have you been able to do any trials with folks with different accessibility levels and barriers to test the accessibility for your courses and the platforms you’re looking to use? I’d be really interested in hearing different feedback on your course! – Anna Hornsby
Hi Anna thank you for your comment! I haven’t done any real trials as the curriculum is still being built, but when I presented the idea at a conference a few weeks ago to several linguists and members of indigenous communities, it seemed to be well received. The main concerns were price and if the course could be translated into other languages. We plan to have it totally free and in English and Spanish at the beginning, though it could be translated to more languages such as French or Portuguese as interest grows! – Elena Pojman
Interesting and valuable topic. Thank you for sharing your research! – Jeanette Herman
This is such an important topic for language documentation. Are there any examples of existing language documentation using the platforms you looked at? – Rob Reichle
Hi Rob! Thanks for your question. In my research I didn’t find anything else similar to what I’m doing using any of the platforms I looked at. A lot of language documentation is either community-based or sponsored by academic institutions! – Elena Pojman