The field of language documentation continues to grow, but an historic split between sign language documentation and spoken language documentation persists. In order to fully understand the linguistic context within a community, it can be necessary to overcome this split by designing language documentation projects to address threatened and…

In light of recent calls for decolonial approaches to Indigenous language learning, documentation, and reclamation, we describe the creation of a digital archive initiated and sustained by community collaboration. We work with members of the three federally recognized Cherokee tribes to translate and analyze Cherokee texts. Cherokee speakers…

Although some critics consider it time-consuming and demanding, proponents of the monolingual approach for field research (i.e., learning to speak a target field language as part of the research process) argue that it can provide a unique insight into its structures. However, this claim remains largely unsubstantiated in the available literature…

This article provides a descriptive guide to the documentation of Chedungun, the regional variant of Mapudungun (ISO 639-2 code arn) that is spoken by the Pewenche people. The 15-hour documentation is currently deposited in the Endangered Language Archive (ELAR) and corresponds to Phase One of a long-term initiative that is currently progressing…

St. Lawrence Island Yupik is an endangered language of the Bering Strait region. In this paper, we describe our work on Yupik jointly leveraging computational morphology and linguistic fieldwork, outlining the multilayer virtuous cycle that we continue to refine in our work to document and build tools for the language. After developing a…

Working with video data is on its way to becoming standard practice in language documentation. However, documenters looking on the web for guidance on standards and best practices for archiving audio-visual data encounter a vast and potentially confusing diversity of information. Unfortunately, a lot of information on archiving video is concerned…

At the 2023 American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference, the International Relations Committee, Americas Subcommittee invited panelists from academic, research, and public libraries to discuss various ways of sharing Indigenous-made materials from the United States and Latin America in the panel, "Sharing Knowledge: Projects and…

This paper presents a critical assessment of the utility of the orthography of Dagbani (a Gur language of Ghana) in the documentation, linguistic research, and literacy acquisition of Dagbani. While written literature on Dagbani dates to over a century, it was only in 1997 that the only known documented orthographic rules of the language, the…

Language documentation is increasingly seen as a collaborative process, engaging community members as active participants. Collaborative research produces better documentation that is valuable for both the academic community and the speakers. However, in many communities, speakers and language advocates lack the skills necessary to fully engage in…

Linguistic and anthropological research has demonstrated that language ideologies play a complex role in contexts of language endangerment, as well as in revitalization initiatives. In this paper, we articulate some central ways in which these beliefs and interests can translate into significant barriers to successful language revitalization.…

Users of digital language archives face a number of barriers when trying to discover and reuse the materials preserved in the digital collections created by current language documentation projects. These barriers include sparse descriptive metadata throughout many collections and the prevalence of audio-video materials that are impervious to…

Italy is characterized by a considerable amount of language variation. Only a few spoken vernaculars enjoy institutional support and are officially recognized as minority languages. Among these, Friulian is one of the largest in terms of number of speakers. In the past decade, the assessment of Friulian language vitality has yielded discordant…

Digital language data provide accessible and enduring records for world languages. While legacy data collections may offer new insights into small or endangered languages, their digitization can raise practical challenges in terms of navigating vast databases of files with limited metadata. This paper demonstrates the practical benefits of…

SLEXIL (Software Linking ELAN XML to Illuminated Language) is a web application designed to allow users to create animated HTML files from time-aligned transcriptions made in ELAN. Unlike earlier projects with similar goals, SLEXIL is a zero-installation web app developed strictly on user-centred principles, designed with the goal of transferring…

This paper introduces "Kwaras" and "Namuti," two new tools for building, managing, accessing, and mobilizing ELAN-based language documentation corpora. Kwaras integrates WAV files, ELAN annotations, and document metadata into a web-based corpus, allowing immediate access to annotations and recordings. Namuti builds from Kwaras…