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Technological Approaches to Linguistic Documentation

and Metadocumentation

Pankaj Dwivedi

Gulab Chand

Somdev Kar

Indian Institute of Technology Ropar

Rupnagar, Punjab 140001

India

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Language Documentation

Principles and methods used for the recording and analysis of primary language and cultural materials, and metadata about them.

Unlike before, with the revolution in the area of information technologies, it is now possible to maintain organized and long-lasting linguistic and cultural records.

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Why documenting languages is IMPORTANT?

Half of the world’s language may no longer to continue to exist after a few more generations as they are not being learnt by children as first languages (Austin & Sallabank, 2011).

Crystal (2002) claims that the rate of language disappearance is as high as two languages each month.

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How ?

Creating Dictionaries

Preparing Language Teaching Materials

Archiving

Language Corpora (Written & Spoken)

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What is needed?

Lot of language data and latest technology

Language data: Text, Audio and Video

Technology: software and tools which can handle the language data and platforms wherein these data can be effectively made use of.

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What do we need?

Language data ( No Problem)Platforms (will see later on)Latest TOOLS and SOFTWARE for:

1. Recording and Capturing

2. Analysis

3. Archiving

4. Mobilization

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ONE MOMENT!!!

Is ‘Latest’ the best?

or

Old is gold?

CHOOSE CAREFULLY !!!

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Is ‘TECHNOLOGY’ adoption always good?

Languages may live on without orthography. But no language will be able to function as administrative language in a modern society without a developed language technology (Trosterud, 2006).

Technology changes quickly and an uncritical adoption of new tools and technologies might compromise with long-term sustainability, portability, usability and compatibility with other platforms (Bird & Simons, 2003).

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Striking a balance

Portability: operating systems, formats, software, encodings

Sustainability: long-term preservation and usefulness

Maintenance and Distribution: finances, space, tools and reach

Access and protocols: paid or free, open or closed, research or business, full or partial

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Capturing Audio Media

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Why or Why not WAV?

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Capturing Video Media

CODECS

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CONTAINERS

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Capturing Digital Text

Character Encoding: Unicode, ASCII, Windows/ANSI, Big5, Latin 5 etc.

Data Encoding: XML, SGML, MSWord etc.

File Encoding: plain-text, PDF, MSWord etc.

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Digital text: An overview

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Analysis tools

Transcription

Annotation

Translation

Metadata Management

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Popular Tools

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Metadata Management

Cataloguing: title, speakers, collectors, time and place, language name etc.

Descriptive: information about content, relationship to other content etc.

Structural: structures and patterns Technical: description of formats, encoding,

required tools and softwareAdministrative: work log, access protocol etc.

(Nathan &Austin, 2004)

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Platforms

1. Online Language Archives:

Examples:OLAC, ANLA, ELAR, CLA, The Language Archive, PARADISEC etc.

2. Social Media: Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, etc.

Examples: ‘Indigenous Tweets’ and ‘Facebook in your language’ by Prof. Kevin Scannell

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Conclusion

In the generation when the rate of language death is at its peak, if we choose to use moribund technologies to create and preserve language data, when technologies die, unique heritage is also lost or encrypted (Bird & Simons, 2003).

We must keep in mind:

Purpose, Presentation, Portabilityand

Preservation

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ReferencesAustin, P., & Sallabank, J. (Eds.) (2011). The Cambridge

handbook of endangered languages. Cambridge University Press

Bird, S., & Simons, G. (2003). Seven dimensions of portability for language documentation and description. Language, 79(3), pp. 557-582

Crystal, D. (2002). Language death. Cambridge University Press.

Nathan, D., & Austin, P. (2004). Reconceiving metadata: language documentation through thick and thin. Language documentation and description, 2, 179-187.

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Trosterud, T. (2006). Grammatically based language technology for minority languages. TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS STUDIES AND MONOGRAPHS, 175, 293.

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Thank You!Questions and Feedback.