data base

Thu Jan 10 22:09:23 UTC 2013

Hi,

I really like Fieldworks Language Explorer (FLEx), from SIL:

http://fieldworks.sil.org/flex/

It's free.  I haven't set up a new database myself, so I don't know how difficult that step is.  But I've been very happy with all the ways we can search for different things and organize language information in it.  It has turned a collection of thousands of pages of 80-year-old notes (plus some a couple hundred years old), about as disorganized as the post-it note method you describe, into a really helpful database we can search for any word or suffix we want.  There's also a helpful users group, and the Tech Support people for FLEx are great.  Version 7 is much faster than earlier versions, which were sometimes too slow to be useful.  It only runs on Windows, though.

Good luck, and happy database work!

Natasha Warner

***************************************************
Natasha Warner, Professor
Dept. of Linguistics, Box 210028
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721-0028
USA
520-626-5591
***************************************************
________________________________
From: Indigenous Languages and Technology [ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU] on behalf of Tammy DeCoteau [tdc.aaia at VERIZON.NET]
Sent: Thursday, January 10, 2013 2:03 PM
To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU
Subject: [ILAT] data base

Mitakuyapi (My relatives),

In the ten years our language program has been operating we have amassed several files of different words and phrases in our language.  Many of these words that are not in the missionary dictionaries we commonly use and none of the phrases are in dictionaries.  We have saved every scrap of paper on which something in our language was written down.

Sometimes, one of the elders will rush into our office on Monday morning, blurt out a phrase in Dakotah and tell us what it means in English.  That means to me that over the weekend, the elder thought of something that hadn't been said and wanted us to save it.  So many of these are written on post-in-notes or on the back of another sheet of paper and all are saved in what we call, "Word and Phrases, Volume I, Words and Phrases, Volume II," etc.

Because of funding issues our language program's future is uncertain.  I want to take care of cataloging these words and phrases so that we can place a copy in our archives in Princeton for future use.

Does anyone know of any database that is already created where we could easily catalog these?

Tammy DeCoteau
AAIA Native Language Program
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ilat/attachments/20130110/4f77dbbf/attachment.htm>