Preserving Language

[Nicholas Thieberger]

This way of taking snippets of language out into the community sounds wonderful. A question though. If this is the only recording being made of these teaching materials, what quality is it being recorded at? And how easy will it be to get these recordings onto another medium when these machines no longer work? It would be a real shame if all the work being put into the collection of phrases now is lost when the machine eventually fails.

Are there archival versions of these sound files from which phraselator takes a copy or is it the only copy?

Nick

At 2:37 PM -0700 10/9/06, Andre Cramblit wrote:
>Device may help preserve languages
>Technology was originally developed for use by Army
>
>By Diane Huber
>The Olympian
>http://159.54.227.3/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060909/NEWS01/609090306/1003
>
>SHELTON - A hand-held electronic device could help the Squaxin Island
>Indians - and tribes throughout the country - preserve their native
>language.
>
>"After the elders pass on, that's it," said Corey (Bear) O'Lague, who
>lives on the Squaxin reservation and grew up speaking a southern
>dialect of the language.
>
>He was one of about a dozen people who came to the Squaxin Island Tribe
>Museum, Library and Research Center Friday for a demonstration of the
>Phraselator, a tool for revitalizing American Indian languages.
>
>"We could take it to the elders, who still speak the language," O'Lague
>said.
>
>The Phraselator was developed by a defense company after the Sept. 11
>attacks and was first used strictly for soldiers to communicate with
>non-English speakers.
>
>Don Thornton of California-based Thornton Media Inc. thought the
>technology would apply well to American Indian tribes, inspired by his
>own Oklahoma Cherokee background.
>
>Now he and his wife, Kara, travel the country showing off the $3,300
>device.
>
>They're working with more than 40 tribes.
>
>"If your kids aren't learning the language, then the language is in
>trouble," Thornton said.
>
>The device looks like an oversized calculator with a computer screen.
>The user can speak an English phrase or select one on the screen, such
>as "Hello, how are you?" and "My name is.' " A male or female recorded
>voice then speaks the phrase in the tribal language. It also can play
>back entire prayers or songs.
>
>The tribe hopes to purchase some of the devices, museum Director
>Charlene Krise said.
>
>"It will be important because we have language that has been so
>diminished" by the introduction of English, she said. "The language for
>our tribal people has always been extraordinarily important because the
>language is connected to the land."
>
>Many families speak the tribe's language with their children at home,
>and preschoolers learn the dances, songs, numbers and ABCs in school,
>she said. But people her age - from 40 to 60 - have trouble speaking
>the language.
>
>"We hear it and can understand it, but it's very difficult to speak,"
>she said.
>
>Peter Boome, an Upper Skagit Indian who lives on the Squaxin Island
>reservation, said he'd like to use the device to teach his four
>children the tribe's language.
>
>"Language conveys a way of thinking. ... You view the world through your
>language," he said. "And English is very different than American Indian
>languages, the thought processes and philosophy."
>
>Words for "fire," for example, convey that it has different forms and is
>living and moving, he said.
>
>He knows little of his own language, Ute, because his parents'
>generation went to boarding school and were disciplined for speaking
>their tribal languages, he said.
>
>Thornton told a similar story about his mother.
>
>Valerie Bellack, a coordinator for the Muckleshoot Language Program,
>said she will take information on the Phraselator back to her tribe in
>Auburn.
>
>"I think it's a tool. I don't think in itself it can create a fluent
>speaker," she said. "With the children, they learn a language by
>hearing it, so I believe this will be a useful tool for the younger
>generation."
>
>On the Web
>
>For information on the Phraselator, go to www.ndnlanguage.com
>
>For information on the Squaxin Island Tribe Museum, Library and Research
>Center, go to www.squaxinislandmuseum.org
>
>Diane Huber covers the city of Lacey and its urban growth area for The
>Olympian. She can be reached at 360-357-0204 or dhuber at theolympian.com.


-- 

Project Manager
PARADISEC
Pacific And Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures
http://paradisec.org.au


nicholas.thieberger at paradisec.org.au
Department of Linguistics and Applied Linguistics
University of Melbourne
Vic 3010
Australia

Ph 61 (0)3 8344 5185