#paradisec

Paradisec is now host to a collection of recordings from Langtang in Nepal. These recordings include traditional stories and personal histories of speakers of the Langtangpa language. Researchers are often told to think about the long term importance of endangered language material that we work with, but Becky and Radka, who worked with the Langtangpa to build the collection, were confronted with this in ways they never expected after the 2015 earthquakes in Nepal, that flattened the Langtangpa villages, and killed many of the people in the recordings.

The collection is open access, and will continue to grow and be translated. Neither Becky or Radka are trained linguists, but they’ve done an amazing job of learning the workflows linguists use in language documentation to build a collection of recordings that are now an invaluable resource for both the Langtangpa community and researchers. I’ve been helping to archive the recordings, and wrote about the collection for the Paradisec blog (Endangered Languages and Cultures) when the collection went live:

While the Langtang region is well-known to as a trekking destination in Nepal, almost nothing is known about the people who live there, the language that they speak, and its relationship to other Tibeto-Burman languages. The ethnic Tibetan Langtangpa population have called the valley home for at least 4 centuries and speak a language that shares features with those of their Kyirong neighbours in the north, and Yolmo neighbours in the south.

On hearing that there has been no documentation made of the Langtang language, Radka Kvicalova and Becky Slade decided to start a project in the Basic Oral Language Documentation (BOLD) method. Neither are trained linguists, but learnt how to use audio recorders and build the metadata for their documentation project. Their aim was to build a project that could be a useful record of the Langtang language for both the community, and researchers interested in the language. They worked to ensure that all materials would be open access archived, with written or oral transcriptions and translations into either English or Nepali. When I heard about their work on a field trip to Nepal I helped them arrange an archiving plan with Paradisec. The collection is now available as Paradisec collection LAN1.

Becky and Radka began their documentation in Langtang in 2014. While the 2015 earthquakes in Nepal were devastating for many communities, the residents of Langtang were particularly hard hit. The earthquake on April 25, 2015 triggered a major avalanche that killed 187 of the 673 Langtangpa. Forty households disappeared, and many more were damaged. Almost the entire population were forced to relocate to Kathmandu to survive the winter. As a result of this tragedy and the ensuing displacement of the Lantangpa, the language, cultural heritage, and intergenerational knowledge of Langtang is increasingly at risk.

[Photograph of Langtangpa women in traditional clothing, sitting in a green valley. Taken by Lhakpa Tamang Jangba]

When I was in Nepal in December I was given 20 cassette of Yolmo recordings from the 1970s and 1980s. These recordings were made by Anne Marie Hari, who worked on the Yolmo language in the Melamchi and Helambu area for over 20 years, and included wordlists, songs stories and conversations. They were being held by SIL, who were looking for a way to digitise them.

Related to yesterday's post about Breath of Life workshops, is an interesting discussion about balancing access and confidentiality in archiving current linguistic data, from a recent Linguistics in the Pub:

The early impetus for digital archiving as we know it was to save recordings which might otherwise deteriorate and be unusable for the benefit of researchers, speakers and their descendants. The image of rotting reel to reel tapes in an old suitcase in the garage was often evoked. Thankfully, those documenting endangered languages now have a range of functional digital archives where the material that they collect can be safely stored and accessed. Of course not all fieldworkers do archive their materials, but this discussion aims to put forward the viewpoint of those who do: a group of hard-working linguists who take seriously both their responsibilities to the communities of speakers that they work with and the community of academics that they work with.

The focus of digital archives, however, is now on making collections as accessible as possible. Archives of endangered languages allow depositors to select from a range of access options which typically include: unrestricted access (often referred to as open-access), access after clicking on an agreement that the materials will not be used in certain ways, access using a password, access only by request to depositor and closed access. While accessibility is one of the great benefits of digital archiving, field linguists are under increasing pressure to make online access to their collections fairly unrestricted. At least two digital archives have been regularly contacting depositors and request that restrictions on accessing their collections be reduced.

While the role of digital archives seems to have shifted, the kinds of material that linguists are recording has also changed. In fact the contemporary field linguist is now likely to create hundreds of hours of digital recordings during their career, rather than a box of tapes, mini-discs etc. Linguists are also likely to be recording in intimate settings in small communities, where anonymity of participants is not possible. The desire for more naturalistic data means that many linguists want to record more than just tellings of myths, word lists and elicited sentences. Increasingly they are interested in recording informal interactions between intimates: family members and close friends.

(Read the rest)

And also related is this post by another Australian, David Nathan, on whether Open Access is really the best aim for linguistic field data: 

OA aims in the wrong direction. Current research and practice in language documentation and archiving is towards more – not less – source community and individual control over resources which they originated. While such community control is only recently acknowledged by (some) language archives, it has been part of language documentation and fieldwork theory, practice and training for nearly 20 years. As far back as 1997, the Indigenous workshop “The bush Track Meets the Information Superhighway“, while clearly recognising the benefits of new media, stated that the issue “of greatest concern to all communities … was the lack of moral rights and intellectual property protection for Indigenous Australians”. The most recent thinking supports originating community and individual curation, representation, and access moderation of resources.

(Read the rest)