Volume 20 (2026)

Amalia Skilton, Claire Bowern

Spoken language always goes along with meaningful visible behavior, such as gesture and eye gaze. But while language use is multimodal, published recommendations and formal training in spoken language documentation tend to focus almost exclusively on the audio part of the signal. Therefore, this tutorial provides a practical guide to using video as part of a spoken language documentation project. We motivate why these projects should consider recording video, and we then describe the equipment needs, recording setups, and post-processing workflow required for collecting transcribable video. We also discuss the unique ethical/privacy concerns raised by video recording and archiving. Overall, our goal is to centralize and formalize the recommendations about video that have long circulated in oral form, or as grey literature, in documentation circles.

Julie Lowry

This paper reports on a preliminary investigation into vernacular plant names and their uses in the Jazan mountain region of Saudi Arabia, where the under-documented language varieties of Khawlānia are spoken. Many studies have documented the scientific names of the plants found in the Khawlān mountain region and some studies have documented vernacular names; however, vernacular names with attention to the linguistic pronunciation, along with traditional local knowledge of these plants, have not been well documented. Vernacular plant names are important to many fields of study such as linguistics, anthropology, botany, and ethnobotany because cultural and local knowledge are often embedded in plant names. Until recently, residents of the Jazan mountains were dependent on their natural environment as subsistence farmers and animal herders; however, as modernization is disrupting this relationship, they are losing local names of plants. Therefore, it is recommended to build an app to support and promote data collection of vernacular plant names and their uses.

Benjamin Hunt, Sylvia L.R. Woodrose Schwartz, Ukall Crystal Apangalook

We developed and used a series of simple images for eliciting nominal quantifiers in Akuzipik, an endangered Alaska Native language. We developed the images with an eye to “filling in” the existing documentation, having compared previously documented quantifiers to a cross-linguistic quantifier questionnaire. However, as the images were intended to elicit previously undocumented or under-documented quantifiers, they were designed to evoke general quantificational semantic spaces rather than specific English lexical items. After outlining our development process, we describe how the images were created using open-source software and how they were employed via a messaging client for distance fieldwork during the global pandemic. We then present and discuss successful and unsuccessful elicitation scenarios in which the images were employed and offer thoughts regarding their use. The images are available for use under a Creative Commons license.

David M. Eberhard, Lucija Šimičić

In some local language communities, intergenerational transmission of the vernacular occurs later than expected. The aim of this study is to demonstrate that an under-documented acquisition pattern exists as a norm in many communities worldwide. We propose the term Deferred Vernacular Production (DVP) to refer to a language acquisition pattern in which members of a minority language community first acquire a majority language at home, and then later begin to naturally produce their local vernacular at some point after early childhood – outside the home, and without any intervention. Three case studies are provided: Sãotomense, Angolar, and Molise Croatian. Differences in the timing of speech onset, defined as the phase of socialization when active use of the vernacular begins, are discussed in each case study. Reports of DVP in 31 languages across the globe are then provided, suggesting this is a worldwide phenomenon. A variant of this phenomenon, Prolonged Vernacular Acquisition (PVA), is proposed as a target for future research, along with a generic term, Late Vernacular Acquisition (LVA), to include both DVP and PVA. Finally, the diverse motivations reported by speakers for this practice are presented, and implications of DVP for language vitality studies are discussed.

Mizuki Miyashita, Richard Littlebear, Susan Penfield

The Institute on Collaborative Language Research (CoLang) is a biennial training venue for language documentation and revitalization. It aims to assist all stakeholders, who collaborate across the boundaries of speaking communities and academe. While including Indigenous participation has always been a goal of CoLang, that goal has been conceived and realized differently at each meeting, and it has been common for the number of non-Indigenous linguists to exceed that of Indigenous participants. To address this issue, when planning CoLang 2022 we focused on CoLang’s stated goal by expanding on the concept of collaboration. As a result, the number of Indigenous attendees was twice what we expected, and over 70 Indigenous communities from throughout the world were represented. We consider that CoLang 2022 was a turning point in changing the approach to reach the actual goal of CoLang. We hope that the changes we initiated will be perpetuated and that persisting issues will be addressed at future CoLang Institutes. In this article, we (i) discuss the increase in Indigenous participation in CoLang 2022, (ii) describe the process of designing CoLang 2022 toward that goal, and (iii) address the issues and challenges that remain for future CoLang meetings.

Allison Taylor-Adams

Practitioners and researchers have argued that revitalizing a minoritized language requires fostering positive community attitudes towards that language. However, positive feelings for a heritage language do not necessarily correlate with behaviors or with positive feelings for one’s own abilities. This article investigates individual language revitalization practitioners’ attitudes and ideologies about L2 language learning through the lens of the word fluency. Drawing on analysis of qualitative interviews with 28 practitioners, I identify three different orientations to fluency suggested by the ways practitioners employed this key term: fluency as an ultimate L1-like competency standard, as a scalar measure for continual improvement, or as a way to itemize domains of language use. These orientations towards fluency suggest underlying ideologies of speaker legitimacy – whether L2 learners can be counted as legitimate users of the language. By considering orientations to this term, practitioners and researchers can carefully unpack ideologies in order to challenge deficit views of L2 users in revitalization and to foster positive momentum in community efforts.

Alpheaus G. Zobule, Debra McDougall

The Kulu Language Institute is an innovative Indigenous language school developed by, for, and with speakers of Luqa (lga) and Kubokota (ghn) in Solomon Islands. Globally, scholarly discussions of Indigenous language learning tend to focus on revitalisation, documentation, or preservation, but Kulu is focused firmly on people rather than language. Using a vivid vernacular metalanguage to teach students about the grammar of their own language, the curriculum provides a bridge for students to navigate linguistic, communication, ideological, intellectual, and capacity gaps they face every day. Over twenty-five years, thousands of Ranoqans have undertaken the study of their own language. Some come to Kulu because they cannot read at all. Others have completed many years of school but believe that studying the structure of their own language will help them grasp the grammar of English, which is both the official language of Solomon Islands and the primary language of schooling. Still others are simply amazed at the way that language itself works. By describing the development of the Kulu curriculum and the unexpected ways it is changing people’s lives, this article contributes to a growing global literature on innovative pedagogical movements in Indigenous-led schools. We show how metalinguistic awareness can empower Indigenous learners: they come to appreciate the patterned complexity of their own language and gain confidence in their own intellectual capacity to move across languages.

Laura Arnold

This paper provides the first sketch analyses of Wauyai Maˈya and Batta, two undocumented Austronesian languages spoken in the Raja Ampat archipelago of northwest New Guinea. These sketches are based on survey data collected in 2019 and 2023. Both languages are endangered, in that the youngest fluent speakers are in their forties. The languages are closely related, and typologically similar. Wauyai has 14 consonants, 5 vowels, and a cross-linguistically unusual combination of contrastive stress and lexical tone; Batta has 15 consonants, 6 vowels, tone, and no contrastive stress but a largely sesquisyllabic profile. Both are head-marking, with head-initial NPs, an alienability distinction, and basic SV/AVO order which combines with clause-final aspect/mood and negative markers. The pronominal systems of Wauyai and Batta make a five- and a four-way number distinction, respectively; subjects of verbal clauses are marked with prefixes and infixes in both languages. After outlining and exemplifying these features and touching on several others, I conclude with a brief outlook on the future of the indigenous languages and cultures of Raja Ampat.