Category Archives: Special Publications

SP29: Participatory linguistics: Methods and case studies from around the world

ISBN-13: 978-1-952460-06-7

Edited by Timothy Stirtz, Michael Cahill, and Philip Davison

Abstract

Participatory linguistics is a partnership between local language communities and outside linguists to explore the structures of their language. This volume describes the methods by which this can be done. It begins by introducing the concepts and theoretical foundations underpinning participatory linguistics, which both empower non-dominant language communities and also lead to more effective linguistic research. Then the major part of this work presents a variety of descriptions of case studies of participatory methods from around the world. These are organized according to various linguistic subfields, and offer a range of practical tools, guidelines, and resources for linguists and educators interested in implementing such participatory linguistics and orthography projects. It includes templates for community workshops, guidelines for facilitating inclusive discussions, and recommendations for sustaining long-term language vitality. These case studies also highlight the real-life experiences of language communities engaging in these projects. They showcase diverse cultural contexts and innovative approaches that have yielded successful outcomes in different parts of the world.

Entire Volume

Cover

Front Matter

Endorsements

Contributors

Preface
Michael Cahill. xii-xiii.

Introduction
Timothy Stirtz. 1-8

PART 1: METHODOLOGY

Participatory methods in linguistic research and language development
Philip Swan. 10-27.

What does participatory research contribute to linguistics? A view from Africa
Russell Norton. 28-51.

Phonology first: Methods that delay phonetics for better collaboration
Kent Rasmussen. 52-62.

PART 2: SOCIOLINGUISTICS

A Guide for Planning the Future of Our Language: A participatory approach to community-based language development
Carletta Lahn. 64-90.

Using participatory methods tools for sociolinguistic research in Nepal
Klaas de Vries. 91-101.

PART 3: PHONOLOGY AND ORTHOGRAPHY

A community-based participatory approach to orthography development in Papua New Guinea: The Alphabet Design Workshop
Catherine Easton. 103-123.

Orthography development in Southeast Asia: A facilitated participatory approach case study
Christina Page. 124-135.

Participatory Research in Linguistics for language and orthography development: A practical guide
Constance Kutsch Lojenga. 136-158.

Ngbugu: A case study for participatory phonology
Kenneth S. Olson. 159-165.

Participatory orthography development in practice: A workshop with Maꞌdi Urule in Uganda
Maria Stølen. 166-175.

Becoming a professor in my own language: A participatory orthography approach in Southeast Asia
Shane Devereux and Jenita van den Belt. 176-187.

Computers in the community: Future-proof participatory methods
Kent Rasmussen. 188-203.

Participatory orthography development in Abawiri
Brendon Yoder. 204-216.

PART 4: MORPHOSYNTAX

Rapid Grammar Collection: Language communities owning the orthography development process
Timothy Stirtz. 218-230.

Report on the Rapid Grammar Collection workshop in Konabéré (Bobo Madare North)
Wilma Wolthuis and Carin Boone. 231-240.

The value of games and activities in participatory workshops
Carla Unseth. 241-250.

The Mombo experience: Participating in a language discovery adventure
Thomas Blecke, Baerbel Blecke and Josué Teme. 251-261.

The PAWS Method
Cheryl A. Black and H. Andrew Black. 262-273.

Case study of the PAWS grammar tool used in the Central African Republic
Paul Murrell. 274-286.

Grammar discovery applied, evaluated and enhanced: A manifesto for more participatory education
Oliver Kröger. 287-301.

Experiences with the Discover-Your-Grammar approach in Ethiopia
Andreas Joswig and Susanne Neudorf. 302-309.

Discover Your Language training in Papua New Guinea
Michel Pauw. 310-321.

Discover Your Language – Chad
James S. Roberts. 322-329.

PART 5: LEXICOGRAPHY

Lexicography: Rapid Word Collection
Kevin Warfel and Verna Stutzman. 331-346.

Rapid Word Collection workshops among the Kabwa and Ikizu-Sizaki language groups of Tanzania
John B. Walker. 347-356.

Participatory methodology in Rapid Word Collection for dictionary making: Etic vs emic perspectives from a Philippine coastal community
Jacqueline Huggins. 357-367.

‘Haisla first’: Using Rapid Word Collection and the Participant-driven Approach to support indigenous language revitalization
Chuck Murphey. 368-379.

PART 6: DISCOURSE

Mentored participatory discourse linguistics training
Carla K. Bartsch. 381-390.

Case study of Bartsch’s discourse workshop methodology: Liberia
Becky Grossmann. 391-401.

Discourse workshop: A case study of the Padi storying project (Indonesia)
Virginia J. Castro. 402-411.

Participatory discourse analysis workshops in South Asia
Sara du Preez. 412-422.

Workshops in discourse analysis for translation
Steve Nicolle. 423-434.

Evaluating the impact of participatory discourse analysis workshops in Cameroon and beyond
Ginger Boyd, Melanie Viljoen and Eszter Ernst-Kurdi. 435-450.

The song of the day: Just-in-time participatory song analysis for poetry translation
Maria Smith. 451-459.

SP26: Five Key Topics in Language Documentation and Description

ISBN-13: 978-0-9856211-5-5

Edited by Peter Jenks and Lev Michael

Abstract
The five papers in this volume are intended as guides for linguists engaged in language documentation and description. Each contribution provides the conceptual background, central concepts, and where relevant, diagnostic criteria and tests, for working on five central aspects of language. The topics covered include the documentation of speech play and verbal art, information structure, basic semantic concepts in domains of definiteness and indefiniteness, tense and aspect, and valency-changing constructions and processes.

Cover

Front Matter

Preface
Peter Jenks, Lev Michael. 9-10.

Documenting Topic and Focus
Judith Aissen. 11-57.

Elicitation and Documentation of Tense and Aspect
Jürgen Bohnemeyer. 59-98.

Describing Definites and Indefinites
Virginia Dawson, Peter Jenks. 99-174.

Documenting Speech Play and Verbal Art: A Tutorial
Patience L. Epps, Anthony K Webster, Anthony C. Woodbury. 175-241.

Elicitation and Documentation of Valency-Changing Constructions and Processes
Marianne Mithun. 243-292.

Whole Volume

SP28: The Acquisition Sketch Project

Edited by Birgit Hellwig, Shanley E. M. Allen, Lucinda Davidson, Rebecca Defina, Barbara F. Kelly, & Evan Kidd

This special publication aims to build a renewed enthusiasm for collecting acquisition data across many languages, including those facing endangerment and loss. It presents a guide for documenting and describing child language and child-directed language in diverse languages and cultures, as well as a collection of acquisition sketches based on this guide. The guide is intended for anyone interested in working across child language and language documentation, including, for example, field linguists and language documenters, community language workers, child language researchers or graduate students.

Cover

Front Matter

Introduction: The acquisition sketch project

Birgit Hellwig, Shanley E. M. Allen, Lucinda Davidson, Rebecca Defina, Barbara F. Kelly, Evan Kidd

Sketch Acquisition Manual (SAM), Part I: The sketch corpus

Rebecca Defina, Shanley E. M. Allen, Lucinda Davidson, Birgit Hellwig, Barbara F. Kelly, Evan Kidd

Sketch Acquisition Manual (SAM), Part II: The acquisition sketch

Rebecca Defina, Shanley E. M. Allen, Lucinda Davidson, Birgit Hellwig, Barbara F. Kelly, Evan Kidd

Broadening language documentation with child language data: First-hand experience from Tolitoli

Christoph Bracks, Maria Bardají i Farré

Exploring case marking in German first language acquisition using the acquisition sketch approach

Gianna Urbanczik

An acquisition sketch of Inuktitut

Hannah Lee, Shanley E. M. Allen

Full Volume

SP27: Voices: Perspectives from the International Year of Indigenous Languages

Cover Logo by Kaylene Big Knife

Volume Introduction

Sarah Sandman, Shannon Bischoff, Jens Clegg

Front Matter

Published as a Special Publication of Language Documentation & Conservation

Linguistic Factors in Intergroup Relations and Democratic Governance in Nigeria

Adegboye Adeyanju. 1-12.

Workshopping for the Indigenous future: Indigenizing approaches that shift Indigenous language reclamation ideologies and increase perceptions of possible futures.

Bri Alexander. 13-26

Revitalizing Cameroon Indigenous Languages Usage in Empowering Realms

Kelen Ernesta Fonyuy. 27-40.

From the Square to the Page, and onto the other Page: The Order of Things in Basque Poetry in Translation

Amaia Gabantxo. 41-53

Where We’re Going, We Don’t Need Colonizers: The Rejection of Manifest Destiny and Construction of an Alternate World Using Indigenous Futurisms in Popular Media

Courtney-Sophia W. Henry. 54-61.

What documenting for reclamation looks like: Ojibwemowin Forest Walks

Mary Hermes, Mel Engman, James McKenzie, Meixi. 62-74.

Kachin orature project: Documentation, archiving, and revitalization of oral heritage in northern Myanmar

Keita Kurabe, Lu Awng. 75-93.

Politics on the Periphery: The Challenges of Indigenous Linguistic Nationalism(s) in the Peruvian altiplano

Sandhya Krittika Narayanan. 94-104.

Redes de colaboración para la revitalización de las lenguas indígenas: la experiencia nasa-vasca
Creating networks and partnerships for Indigenous language revitalization: the Nasa-Basque experience

Ane Ortega, Arkaitz Zarraga. 105-116.

Making Dictionaries of Lesser-Known Indigenous languages: Coding of Lexical Semantic Information

Umarani Pappuswamy. 117-135.

Towards an Indigenously-informed Model for Assessing the Vitality of Native American Languages: a Southern Arizona Pilot Project

Tyler Peterson, Ofelia Zepeda. 136-154.

Creating wide networks of support for Indigenous languages: The workshop on Community-based Language Research Across the Americas (CBLRAA)

Katherine J. Riestenberg, Melvatha Chee, Tania Granadillo, Shannon Bischoff. 155-164.

NAMA in the IYIL 2019 Perspectives: Celebrating 20 Years Training Native Scholars in Linguistics

W. D. L. Silva, Amy Fountain, Bri Alexander, Corey Roberts, Mosiah Bluecloud, Joseph Dupris, Joseph Marks. 165-178.

Indigenous Community Media for Language Survival in Nepal

Dev Kumar Sunuwar. 179-185.

Proclamación y Celebración del Año Internacional de Lenguas Indígenas por Las Naciones Unidas

Proclamation and Celebration of The International Year of Indigenous Languages by The United Nations

Diego Tituaña. 186-196.

A Text Documentation and Socio-Pragmatic Analysis of Ibibio Women’s Satirical Folksongs

Eshiet Udosen, Ogbonna Anyanwu. 197-215.

Full Volume

LD&C Special Publication No. 27: Voices: Perspectives from the International Year of Indigenous Languages.

SP25: Doing Corpus-Based Typology With Spoken Language Corpora: State of the art

This volume features state-of-the art typological research, based on corpora from 64 spoken languages and one signed language. It is primarily intended to counteract the written bias in current corpus-based typology, and to illustrate how language documentation data is crucial for this endeavour. The volume does, however, reflect the unfortunate historical bias towards spoken languages, which is also reflected in the title of the volume, and we sincerely regret if this is construed as perpetrating the ongoing marginalization of signed language in linguistic research, and elsewhere.

The role of language documentation in corpus-based typology
Stefan Schnell, Geoffrey Haig & Frank Seifart. 1–28.

Child language documentation: The sketch acquisition project
Birgit Hellwig, Rebecca Defina, Evan Kidd, Shanley E. M. Allen, Lucinda Davidson & Barbara F. Kelly. 29–58.

Prosodic segmentation and cross-linguistic comparison in CorpAfroAs and CorTypo: Corpus-driven and corpus-based approaches
Amina Mettouchi & Martine Vanhove. 59–113.

Combining documentary linguistics and corpus phonetics to advance corpus-based typology
Frank Seifart. 115–139.

Universals of reference in discourse and grammar: Evidence from the Multi-CAST collection of spoken corpora
Geoffrey Haig, Stefan Schnell & Nils N. Schiborr. 141–177.

Language vs individuals in cross-linguistic corpus typology
Danielle Barth, Nicholas Evans, I Wayan Arka, Henrik Bergqvist, Diana Forker, Sonja Gipper, Gabrielle Hodge, Eri Kashima, Yuki Kasuga, Carine Kawakami, Yukinori Kimoto, Dominique Knuchel, Norikazu Kogura, Keita Kurabe, John Mansfield, Heiko Narrog, Desak Pratiwi, Eka Putu, Saskia van Putten, Chikako Senge & Olena Tykhostup. 179–232.

This research topic of yours – is it a research topic at all? Using comparative interactional data for a fine-grained reanalysis of traditional concepts
Pavel Ozerov. 233–280.

SP25 Front matter

SP25 Whole volume

SP25 Cover

SP24: Phonetic fieldwork in southern New Guinea

Edited by

Kate L. Lindsey & Dineke Schokkin

ISBN-13: 978-0-9979673-2-6

Abstract: This article provides an overview of the phonologies of Southern New Guinea languages, based on the six languages in this special issue plus two others for which JIPA illustrations have recently been published –Yelmek (Yelmek-Maklew family), Ngkolmpu, Nmbo and Nen (Yam family), Idi and Ende (Pahoturi River), Bitur (Marind-Anim branch of Trans-New Guinea) and Urama (Kiwaian branch of Trans-New Guinea). It surveys overall inventory sizes (maximal 28 consonants and 8 vowels, in Nmbo, minimal 13 consonants plus 5 vowels in Urama), and the most important segment types characteristic of the region, including retroflexion in Idi and Ende, labial-velar stops (Nen, Nmbo), rounded stops (Nmbo), relatively large liquid inventories (Pahoturi River) and prenasalised stop phonemes (Ngkolmpu, Nen, Nmbo).

2. A phonetic description of Yelmek
Tina Gregor

Abstract: This paper provides a first description of the phonetics and phonology of a language from the Yelmek-Maklew family, a language family without a genealogical link to any other language family in New Guinea or elsewhere. The variety under consideration in this paper is used by people from the village of Wanam, located in the Papuan Province on the Indonesian side of New Guinea. Wanam is the northernmost of the four villages attributed to the Yelmek branch of the family (ISO 639-3:jel, glottocode: yelm1242). The variety in question has 13 consonant phonemes and 7 vowel phonemes. The vowel inventory includes a phonemic schwa, which is distinct from the epenthetic schwa that is used to split illicit consonant cluster. Noteworthy suprasegmental features include the absence of word-level stress and the fact that interrogative and declarative utterances have the same basic pitch contour.

3. Phonetics and Phonology of Ngkolmpu

Matthew J. Carroll

Abstract: This paper describes the phonetics and phonology of segments in Ngkolmpu, a language spoken in the Merauke region of Indonesian Papua. The language is a member of the the Tonda-Kanum branch of the Yam family and displays a fairly typical segmental inventory for a Yam language with some notable exceptions. There are sixteen phonemic consonantal segments. As commonly found in Papuan languages, the primary manner distinction of stops is between voiceless oral stops and prenasalised stops. Rather unusually, both the plain oral stops and the prenasalised stops are voiceless for the oral period of the articulation. There are seven phonemic vowels and one epenthetic vowel whose distribution is phonotactically determined.

4. The phonetics of Nmbo (Nɐmbo) with some comments on its phonology (Yam family; Morehead district)

Eri Kashima

Abstract: This paper presents aspects of the phonetics and phonology of the Nmbo language as spoken by the Kerake tribe peoples of southern Western Province, Papua New Guinea. The paper is primarily concerned with the phonetics of consonants and vowels, but also presents description and audio examples of stress and clausal intonation patterns.

5. Phonetics and phonology of Idi
Dineke Schokkin, Volker Gast, Nicholas Evans, & Christian Döhler

Abstract: This paper provides a first description of the phonetics and phonology of Idi (Pahoturi River; ISO 639-3: idi, glottocode: idii1243) as spoken by about 1,000 people in the villages of Dimsisi and Sibidiri, located in the Morehead District of Western Province, Papua New Guinea. Idi has a fairly large inventory of 21 consonant phonemes and 8 vowel phonemes. As with other languages spoken in the region, the two central vowels show a hybrid status and could be analysed as sometimes phonemic and sometimes epenthetic. Other noteworthy characteristics are the presence of vowel harmony, voiced and voiceless retroflex plosives/affricates, nasality as a “floating” feature, and coarticulated labial-velar plosives, although the latter most likely originated as loan phonemes from Nen.

6. The phonetics of Bitur
Phillip G. Rogers

Abstract: This paper offers a description of the phonetics of Bitur, a language spoken by less than a thousand people in Western Province, Papua New Guinea. With just thirteen consonants and five vowels, the phoneme inventory of Bitur is fairly typical of a Papuan language and yet relatively small in its more immediate geographic and genealogical contexts. The consonants of Bitur represent five manners of articulation and span four places of articulation. Prenasalized stops are noticeably absent, despite their prevalence in the region and among related languages. The low central vowel /a/ assimilates in height to nearby mid and high vowels, and it provides a means to distinguish high vowels from approximants. The Bitur syllable consists minimally of a vowel nucleus with simple onsets and codas allowed. Vowel length is not contrastive, but it seems to be the most salient prosodic feature of the Bitur word. As the first substantial phonetic description of a Lower Fly language— the least-known language group in Southern New Guinea—this paper represents an important contribution to our understanding of Papuan languages.

7. A phonetic sketch of Urama
Jason Brown, Alex Muir, & Robbie Petterson

Abstract: This paper provides a phonetic sketch of Urama (Glottocode: uram1241), one of the varieties of the Northeast Kiwai group (iso code: kiw). Urama’s consonant and vowel inventories, with 12 and 5 members respectively, are characteristic of Papuan languages generally. Vowel length is contrastive, but may be in the process of being lost. Urama exhibits a pitch accent system, but only a few words are found in which tone alone distinguishes meaning.

SP24 Front Matter

SP24 Cover

SP23: Theoretical reflections around the role of fieldwork in linguistics and linguistic anthropology: Contributions of Indigenous researchers from southern Mexico

This is an English translation of an earlier Special Publication in Spanish:

Cruz Cruz, Emiliana, ed. 2020. Reflexiones teóricas en torno a la función del tra- bajo de campo en lingüística-antropológica: Contribuciones de investigadores indí- genas del sur de México. Language Documentation & Conservation Special Publication 22.

These six articles, all fruit of the work of Indigenous researchers, come to us at an important moment, feeding the existing debates on “fieldwork” led by Indigenous researchers in the social sciences generally. Yet the volume Theoretical reflections around the role of fieldwork in linguistics and anthropology: Contributions of Indigenous researchers from southern Mexico is a pioneering study into the critiques, discourses, and limitations associated with fieldwork and research in the places where we live and where our families live. This critical edge must be considered when thinking about fieldwork and research in general.

SP23: Theoretical reflections around the role of fieldwork in linguistics and linguistic anthropology: Contributions of Indigenous researchers from southern Mexico

SP22: Reflexiones teóricas en torno a la función del trabajo de campo en lingüística- antropológica: Contribuciones de investigadores indígenas del sur de México

Editora: Emiliana Cruz Cruz

Continue reading

SP21: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Language Documentation

Edited by Susan D. Penfield
ISBN: 978-0-9856211-9-3

SP20: Collaborative Approaches to the Challenges of Language Documentation and Conservation

Edited by Wilson de Lima Silva & Katherine J. Riestenberg

Continue reading

SP19: Documentation and Maintenance of Contact Languages from South Asia to East Asia

Edited by Mário Pinharanda-Nunes and Hugo C. Cardoso

2019   ISBN 978-0-9973295-6-8

In the time spanning from Himmelmann’s (1998) seminal article, the practice of language documentation has understandably developed a discernible focus on endangered, minority, and lesser described languages.

As a result of the realization of the global pervasiveness of language endangerment, these associated endeavours have significantly expanded their vitality and visibility in recent years. However, contact languages have been to some extent absent from discourses on language endangerment, but also from institutional initiatives to counter the situation. In practice, contact languages have also been and continue to be the object of language documentation, description, and revitalization efforts, as demonstrated in this special volume with concrete reference to the regions of South, Southeast, and East Asia.

Continue reading

SP18: Archival Returns: Central Australia and Beyond

ISBN: 978-0-9973295-7-5

Edited by Linda Barwick, Jennifer Green, and Petronella Vaarzon-Morel

Co-published with Sydney University Press

Continue reading

SP17: Language and Toponymy in Alaska and Beyond

Papers in Honor of James Kari

Edited by Gary Holton & Thomas F. Thornton
ISBN 978-0-9973295-4-4
March 1, 2019

It is difficult to imagine place names research in Alaska without the work of James Kari. Through his tireless field work and advocacy, Dr. Kari has collaborated with speakers of all of Alaska’s Dene languages to help build a comprehensive record of Dene geographic knowledge. When Jim came to Alaska in 1972, the documentation of Dene languages was fragmentary at best, and the only records of Native place names were those found inaccurately spelled on maps and gazetteers. Now nearly a half a century later we are surrounded by Native names—from K’esugi Ridge in Susitna Valley to Troth Yeddha’ on the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus. The increased visibility of Alaska Native place names today is due in no small part to Jim’s efforts. His work has inspired a generation of scholars, including the contributors to this volume, and continues to set the standard for toponymy research in Alaska and beyond. 

A print version of this volume, in paper with sewn binding, will be published by the Alaska Native Language Center Press in July 2019.

Continue reading

SP16: Methodological tools for linguistic description and typology

ISBN: 978-0-9973295-5-1

Edited by Aimée Lahaussois and Marine Vuillermet

This volume is an outcome of a collaborative multi-year research project on Questionnaires for linguistic description and typology. For the purposes of the project, we use Questionnaire (with a capital Q) as a general term to cover any kind of methodological tool designed to elicit linguistic expressions, including word lists, visual stimuli, descriptive templates, field manuals, and the like. This volume thus brings together articles about written questionnaires and visual stimuli, which due to their epistemological differences are rarely considered together, and treats them as sub-types of the large category of methodological tools that help linguists carry out descriptive and comparative work.

Continue reading

SP15: Reflections on Language Documentation 20 Years after Himmelmann 1998

Edited by Bradley McDonnell, Andrea L. Berez-Kroeker & Gary Holton

University of Hawai‘i Press
ISBN 978-0-9973295-3-7
December 31, 2018

This volume reflects on key issues in the field of language documentation on the 20 year anniversary of Nikolaus Himmelmann’s seminal article “Documentary and descriptive linguistics” in the journal Linguistics. Himmelmann’s central argument that language documentation should “be conceived of as a fairly independent field of linguistic inquiry and practice” has prompted major theoretical and practical shifts, helping to establish documentary linguistics as a genuine subfield of linguistics. Now 20 years later we are able ask: how has this new field evolved? Continue reading

SP14: A Descriptive Grammar of Shilluk

By Bert Remijsen & Otto Gwado Ayoker
ISBN: 978-0-9973295-2-9

This special publication of Language Documentation & Conservation presents descriptive analyses on topics in the grammar of Shilluk, a Nilo Saharan language spoken primarily in South Sudan. A salient characteristic of Shilluk is that it is rich in fusional morphology. That is, stem-internal changes, particularly in terms of tone and vowel length, have a high functional load in the paradigms of verbs and nouns. From 2008 onwards, we have built up a detailed understanding of these contrasts and their role in the grammar. Accountability is a central concern in documentary and descriptive linguistics, and it is one that has determined the design of this publication in various ways. One way we are ensuring that our description is accountable is by including sound examples. We do this because the phenomena themselves are sounds; transcriptions based on the sounds are hypotheses. Aside from making the work more accountable, sound examples embedded in publications make the phenomena more accessible, reducing the threshold between the reader and an unfamiliar language.

This grammar represents a long-term project. It will be published in instalments.

Continue reading

SP13: Documenting Variation in Endangered Languages

Documenting Variation in Endangered Languages

edited by
Kristine A. Hildebrandt, Carmen Jany & Wilson Silva
ISBN­10: 0­9973295­0­5

The papers in this special publication are the result of presentations and follow-up dialogue on emergent and alternative methods to documenting variation in endangered, minority, or otherwise under-represented languages. Recent decades have seen a burgeoning interest in many aspects of language documentation and field linguistics and there is also a great deal of material dealing with language variation in major languages.
In contrast, intersections of language variation in endangered and minority languages are still few in number. Yet examples of those few cases published on the intersection of language documentation and language variation reveal exciting potentials for linguistics as a discipline, challenging and supporting classical models, creating new models and predictions.

Continue reading

SP12: The Social Cognition Parallax Interview Corpus (SCOPIC)

Edited by Danielle Barth and Nicholas Evans
ISBN 0-9973295-1-3

The Social Cognition Parallax Interview Corpus (SCOPIC) provides naturalistic but cross-linguistically-matched corpus data with enriched annotations of grammatical categories relevant to social cognition. By ‘parallax corpus’ we mean ‘broadly comparable formulations resulting from a comparable task’, to avoid the implications of ‘parallel corpus’ that there will be exact semantic equivalence across languages. The problem with that, from a semantic typologist’s point of view, is that it can only be achieved by privileging the semantic structure of the source language in the translations, and that it prevents us from studying the fundamental question of how languages – or the formulation practices of language communities – bias the expression of particular categories in language-specific ways. This volume will grow incrementally with new chapters added in coming years.

Continue reading

SP10: African language documentation: new data, methods and approaches

Seyfeddinipur_2016

Edited by Mandana Seyfeddinipur
University of Hawai‘i Press
ISBN-13: 978-0-9856211-6-2

Over the past 20 years, language documentation activities have been increasing all over the world. Major funding initiatives in Germany (Dokumentation Bedrohter Sprachen (DoBeS) funded by Volkswagen Stiftung), the UK (Endangered Languages Documentation Programme (ELDP) funded by Arcadia) and the US (Documentation of Endangered Languages (DEL) funded by the National Science Foundation) have enabled more and more scholars and students to conduct fieldwork and to document languages for which little or no documentation exists. Continue reading

SP11: Mutsun-English English-Mutsun Dictionary, mutsun-inkiS inkiS-mutsun riica pappel


MutsunCover

University of Hawai‘i Press
ISBN-13: 978-0-9856211-8-6

The Mutsun-English English-Mutsun Dictionary
By Natasha Warner, Lynnika Butler and Quirina Geary

Mutsun is a Costanoan language (part of the Utian language family) from California in the area around the modern towns of San Juan Bautista, Hollister, and Gilroy. The last fluent speaker of Mutsun, Mrs. Ascension Solarsano, died in 1930. Because of her work and the work of earlier native Mutsun speakers with early linguists, there is a large written corpus of Mutsun. This dictionary was compiled by analyzing that documentation. The dictionary is written to be useful both for language revitalization and for linguistic research.

Download the whole volume

SP09: Language Documentation and Conservation in Europe


SP09cover

Edited by Vera Ferreira and Peter Bouda

University of Hawai‘i Press
ISBN-13: 978-0-9856211-5-5

 

 

 

 Europe is a continent with low linguistic diversity and the number of minority and endangered languages is reduced in comparison to other parts of the world. Consequently, Europe is not in the focus of the researchers working on language documentation. Apart from some “major” minority languages in Europe (Catalan, Galician, Breton, Welsh, Basque, etc.), several of the European endangered languages are not known in detail (even in the academia) or documented in a concise and comprehensive way. Primary data on these languages, reflecting their everyday use, is almost non-existent. Moreover, the linguistic diversity in Europe is also unknown to the general public.

Continue reading

SP08: The Art and Practice of Grammar Writing

University of Hawai‘i Press
ISBN-13: 978-0-9856211-4-8 (2014)


GramWriting_Cover
Edited by Toshihide Nakayama and Keren Rice

 

 

 

 

Continue reading

SP07: Language Endangerment and Preservation in South Asia

front coverUniversity of Hawai‘i Press
ISBN 978-0-9856211-4-8 (2014)


Edited by Hugo C. Cardoso

 

 

 

 

Continue reading

SP06: Microphone in the Mud

front cover
University of Hawai‘i Press
ISBN 978-0-9856211-3-1 (2013)

 

LD&C Special Publication No. 6
By Laura Robinson (with Gary Robinson)

 

 

 

Continue reading

SP05: Melanesian Languages on the Edge of Asia: Challenges for the 21st Century

SP05 front coverUniversity of Hawai‘i Press
ISBN 978-0-9856211-2-4 (2012)

Melanesian Languages on the Edge of Asia: Challenges for the 21st Century

 
LD&C Special Publication No. 5
Edited by Nicholas Evans & Marian Klamer
Continue reading

SP04: Electronic Grammaticography

LD&C SP04 coverUniversity of Hawai‘i Press
ISBN 978-0-9856211-1-7 (2012)

Electronic Grammaticography


LD&C Special Publication No. 4
Edited by Sebastian Nordhoff

Continue reading

SP03: Potentials of Language Documentation: Methods, Analyses, and Utilization

LD&C SP03 cover
University of Hawai‘i Press
ISBN 978-0-9856211-0-0 (2012)

Potentials of Language Documentation: Methods, Analyses, and Utilization


LD&C Special Publication No. 3
Edited by Frank Seifart, Geoffrey Haig, Nikolaus P. Himmelmann, Dagmar Jung, Anna Margetts, and Paul Trilsbeek

Continue reading

SP02: Fieldwork and Linguistic Analysis in Indigenous Languages of the Americas

front cover
University of Hawai‘i Press
ISBN 978-0-8248-3530-9 (2010)

Fieldwork and Linguistic Analysis in Indigenous Languages of the Americas


LD&C Special Publication No. 2
Edited by Andrea L. Berez, Jean Mulder, and Daisy Rosenblum

Download full version in PDF.

Continue reading

SP01: Documenting and Revitalizing Austronesian Languages

frontcover
University of Hawai‘i Press
ISBN 978-0-8248-3309-1 (2007)

Documenting and Revitalizing Austronesian Languages


LD&C Special Publication No. 1
Edited by D. Victoria Rau and Margaret Florey

Continue reading