Fwd: [thx Jeff Kopp] Now possible to recover oldest recordings

[David Gene Lewis]

David Lewis
University of Oregon
Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde
------ Forwarded message -------


From: David Robertson <ddr11 at COLUMBIA.EDU>
Reply-to: David Robertson <ddr11 at COLUMBIA.EDU>To:
CHINOOK at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
Date: Sun, 21 May 2006 17:47:26 -0400

Jeff Kopp sent along amazing news that something we'd hoped for has
become 
possible.  Some scientists have succeeded in recovering the sound from
old 
wax cylinder recordings using optical scanning.  Nothing touches the
disk 
(which would wear it out, ruining valuable information).  The
recordings 
at the following links are impressive.  I think they've managed to
clean 
up so much surface noise that we now hear versions better than a wax 
cylinder player ever delivered.  The potential for recovering detailed

phonetic and other linguistic data from old recordings of NW languages
is 
huge.  For example, there's quite a bit of recorded Chinook Jargon
waiting 
for this treatment, when it becomes available and easy to use. 
Thanks, 
Jeff.

--Dave R


"...they're working on optical recovery. This sounds pretty
complicated 
(it's done with a particle accelerator at the DOE's Lawrence Berkeley 
National Laboratory), but besides being totally non-destructive (every

play of a wax cylinder can damage it a little), it gets more of the
sound 
out. http://www.newsobserver.com/303/story/234530.html

Here's another: 
http://playlistmag.com/features/2005/08/preserve3/index.php"

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