Rosetta Stone Endangered Language Program Releases Navajo Language Software (fwd link)

[phil cash cash]

Thanks Mary, the cost estimates are very a nice picture of how such a  
project might happen elsewhere.  I imagine such costs may not be  
sustainable in smaller communities where you have a handful of  
speakers and a much smaller population, say less than 5,000-3,000  
overall.  Supporting networks like an active language program,  
certified language teachers and tech capable language classrooms or  
community hubs, and ideologically clarified speech community (positive  
community acceptance of technological surrogate language learning) are  
minimal thresholds.  Bigger communities achieve these soo easily.   
Again, I imagine that the scale of this type of project in relation to  
community capacities may be among the many issues to consider in  
addition to the state of language documentation, etc..

Just a few more thoughts,
Phil

On Aug 25, 2010, at 2:36 PM, Mary Hermes wrote:

> I did look into this, before the endangered language initiative,  
> this is what they charged and how it played out:
>
> Level one was a bit over $100,000, for level two something like  
> $225,000 (this is the level they recommend going to) and level three  
> another $100,000. You provide the content, they develop it into the  
> product, you get 1,000 copies of the CD/DVD. I believe the group  
> that does this gets to keep the IP on all of this, and you can  
> always buy more of the CDs/DVDs for a price, don't remember if it  
> was specified.
> I will attach the cost estimates.
> A few years ago they offered "endangered language" competition, and  
> then must have had a grant and did it for much less.
> This is the first finished product I have heard of. They had five  
> tribes or so they granted, not sure about this.
>
> In an effort to be transparent and disclose....
> We made a similar product Ojibwemodaa!  Through Transparent  
> Languages (Claire you may know them, they are based in Nashua NH)
> We are independent, Grassroots Indigenous Multimedia, non-profit. As  
> an indigenous non-profit, our version is done for much less than  
> estimates I am sending. Of course, we do not have any marketing  
> budget, so we are completely unknown!
> We are just starting to work for other tribes, starting with the  
> Menominee -- and doing a bare bones run for just 2-3 minuet  
> immersion movies in the software.  We'll have a good cost estimate  
> when we finish something for them.
>
> Mii sa i'iw minik<RosetaStoneELP.pdf>
>
> --------------------------------------------
> Mary Hermes, PhD
> Associate Professor of Education
> Eni-gikendaasoyang:  Center for Indigenous Language and Culture  
> Revitalization
> University of Minnesota Duluth
> 715-462-4230
>
>
>
> On Aug 25, 2010, at 4:15 PM, Phillip E Cash Cash wrote:
>
>> Interesting arrangement certainly.  Thnx Claire, Phil
>>
>> On Wed, Aug 25, 2010 at 1:58 PM, Claire Bowern <clairebowern at gmail.com 
>> > wrote:
>> Hi Phil,
>> As I understand it, Rosetta is doing this for free as long as there  
>> is
>> a community commitment to providing the source materials (and they
>> need to demonstrate they can do so). Rosetta provides a certain  
>> amount
>> of recording and editing time, the prompts, and the software, and
>> funds the travel for the sound engineers to visit the community.
>> This is a total guess but I would guess that would run to $50,000
>> easily, probably more, since it would be billed at professional  
>> hourly
>> rates, not academic linguist rates.
>> Claire
>>
>> --
>>
>> -----
>> Claire Bowern
>> Associate Professor
>> Department of Linguistics
>> Yale University
>> 370 Temple St
>> New Haven, CT 06511
>> North American Dialects survey:
>> http://pantheon.yale.edu/~clb3/NorthAmericanDialects/
>>
>