Dear Dale McCreery,<br>Have you seen our web based language documentation tool <a href="http://www.typecraft.org">www.typecraft.org</a><br>Thanks<br>Ganesh<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On 3 April 2011 10:04, Dale McCreery <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:mccreery@uvic.ca">mccreery@uvic.ca</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">Hello ILAT,<br>
<br>
I have a question for all of you. First, some background.<br>
<br>
For the last two months I've been working documenting the Sgüüx̱s<br>
language, or South Tsimshian so that they can eventually teach it locally.<br>
By the end of April I will have worked through a Coast Tsimshian<br>
dictionary looking for cognates, and will have gone through the Dictionary<br>
Development Process template from SIL recording not just vocabulary, but<br>
everything that I can think of in terms of ways of expressing concepts<br>
without specific vocabulary, work-arounds for things that aren't common,<br>
different ways to use words, etc. As we work we're also getting an idea<br>
of groups of vocabulary, and common ways of saying things, and trying to<br>
expand on those.<br>
<br>
That said, even though I suspect that by the end of the month we'll have<br>
as much of the vocabulary of the language, both roots and set phrases etc)<br>
as the elder will be able to give us with the methods we're using, I feel<br>
there's a gap in our documenting that we need to fill if at all possible.<br>
<br>
While we've been able to get quite a few of what I call conversation<br>
scripts - the normal way to introduce yourself, the whole conversation,<br>
the way to give and accept gifts, a lot of set phrases for speeches, and<br>
things like that, I think that there are so many other conversations that<br>
we really have missed, and just from our conversations in English I get<br>
the impression that a lot of these common social encounters are handled<br>
quite differently by speakers of Tsimshian.<br>
<br>
So - Is there something like a massive list of common types of social<br>
interactions, or a textbook I could find that would teach me how to<br>
recognize them in a language, and how to go about documenting them? Sort<br>
of like a list of semantic domains, but for conversations?<br>
<br>
We only have one speaker left, and she is 97, so I really want to make the<br>
absolute best use of our time recording together.<br>
<br>
Thank you all in advance for any advice you might have!<br>
<font color="#888888"><br>
Dale McCreery<br>
</font></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br> T. Sree Ganesh<br>Language Maintainer for Telugu<br>Red Hat Software Services Pvt Ltd <br>Pune.<br>Email: <a href="mailto:mrthottempudi@yahoo.com">mrthottempudi@yahoo.com</a><br>
Phone: 020 - 40057382.<br>