RNLD Twitter - Siraya grammar and lexicon

Mon Dec 19 22:16:50 UTC 2011

Hello everyone,
This is a great discussion and it is wonderful to hear about these new
works that are coming out!

I would just like to add some resources on the topic of lexicons. At the
Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Language, K. David Harrison and
Greg Anderson have been working diligently on a number of "Talking
Dictionary" projects, in collaboration with many language activists in
different communities. Each talking dictionary contains thousands of
lexical entries. Check them all out here:
http://www.livingtongues.org/talkingdictionaries.html

These are very useful, free online bilingual tools that are great for new
learners of these languages, and great for preserving knowledge; however,
the user must be computer-literate and have internet access to be able to
use the dictionaries.

all the best and happy holidays,
Anna Luisa

-- 
Anna Luisa Daigneault, M.Sc
Latin America Projects Coordinator & Organizational Fellow
Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages<http://www.livingtongues.org/>
@livingtongues <http://twitter.com/#%21/livingtongues>

On Mon, Dec 19, 2011 at 12:48 AM, Huang,Chun <huangc20 at ufl.edu> wrote:

> Thank you, Peter, for raising the question - a very important one.
> and "yes" to Margaret, and "yes" to Anthony.
>
> sorry I can't write much now. I just spent 30 hours flying from Manila,
> Philippines (where I teach now) to Gainesville, FL (where I studied
> linguistics). I am super sleepy right now *_* I have a two-week break from
> work, so I am here in FL learning from Dr. M. J. Hardman's experience with
> Aymara on the Internet (http://aymara.ufl.edu/). We are to discuss the
> possibility of creating something like that for Siraya.
>
> and yes like Margaret said, me and my friends in the Tainan Pepo Siraya
> Culture Association have been active in reclaiming the Siraya language and
> fighting for official recognition of the people. We have organized summer
> camps, trained some teachers, sent some of them to some local elementary
> schools to teach some Siraya, and published a dictionary and a few language
> learning materials. In fact, a 5-book series of Siraya learning books we
> published last year, with nice illustrations, just won a national
> publication award. for a glimpse, see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?**
> v=RRWLwMzTtW4 <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRWLwMzTtW4>
>
> We design all our publications for practical learning-and-teaching
> purposes. We reduce "academese" to minimum because we just want these books
> to be useful, and USED, by those who are learning the language (not the
> linguistics of the language). And all of our publications are trilingual in
> Siraya, English, and Mandarin so people in Taiwan, including casual
> readers, can comprehend.
>
> We have also just started a facebook group where the teachers-in-training
> can practice Siraya.
>
> Adelaar has been helpful for us. He is supportive and he acknowledges our
> work. To some extent, good academic work like Adelaar's helps us defend
> against the bad work (or linguists) that the govt would reference and use
> against our official recognition. that's it. I won't name names. Let me
> just say that those of us in the association who do know linguistics --
> like myself, Chaokai Shih (a non-Siraya volunteer who has been with us for
> 6 years and currently a phd student at Tsing Hua Univ.), and Edgar Macapili
> (main author of most of our publication, one of those "naturally good" at
> linguistics) -- do read Adelaar, learn useful things from his work, and are
> excited whenever we see he has a new publications. We do make our own
> decisions in terms of coming up with a descriptive grammar suitable for
> teaching and learning.
>
> Jimmy
>
> Chun (Jimmy) Huang
> Assistant Professor,
> Department of English and Applied Linguistics,
> De La Salle University - Manila
>
>
>
>
> On Mon, 19 Dec 2011 15:04:16 +1100, Anthony Jukes wrote:
>
>> Hi all
>> I'm the first to agree that reference grammars intended for linguists
>> are not necessarily of use to language communities. But there is no
>> reason to presume that the only way Siraya speakers and activists will
>> have access to Adelaar's material is by shelling out for the Mouton
>> book. In addition, the Siraya people have been fighting for official
>> recognition by the Taiwanese government, and this scholarly
>> publication is likely to be useful in these efforts.
>>
>> Cheers
>> Anthony
>>
>> On Mon, Dec 19, 2011 at 2:49 PM, Margaret Florey <mflorey at rnld.org>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi all,
>>>
>>> Peter's query is an important one in some contexts. However, I'd also
>>> like
>>> to move us along from the assumption that Indigenous people working to
>>> support their own languages are linguistically naive. More and more
>>> Indigenous people are getting training in linguistics in a range of
>>> contexts
>>> - whether in universities or intensive institutes or informal workshops.
>>>
>>> Siraya is a good case in point. Dr Jimmy (Chun) Huang is a linguist (PhD,
>>> University of Florida) and a Siraya language activist, and has researched
>>> and published on his own language. I expect he will be well placed to
>>> draw
>>> on this new material.
>>>
>>> Another perspective to add to the discussion.
>>>
>>> cheers,
>>> Margaret
>>>
>>>
>>> On 19 December 2011 14:36, Greg Dickson <munanga at bigpond.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> A good point to raise Peter.
>>>>
>>>> In my experience of working in Northern Australia with Aboriginal
>>>> languages and language workers, grammars are generally pretty
>>>> indecipherable
>>>> anyway, without a decent amount of training and support to help language
>>>> workers unpack what's in them.
>>>>
>>>> As for dictionaries, the one that I thought community language workers
>>>> responded best to was the Rembarrnga Dictionary compiled by Adam
>>>> Saulwick.
>>>> It has illustrations and a nice layout and with minimal morpho-phonemic
>>>> processes, the Rembarrnga language suits the dictionary format better
>>>> than
>>>> some other languages I've worked with. It was $50 a pop so not
>>>> crazy-expensive, but still - most Rembarrnga speakers wouldn't have
>>>> known
>>>> about where/how to get a copy, let alone be able to afford one and
>>>> what's
>>>> worse is that the Art Centre that produced has sold them all and doesn't
>>>> seem interested in printing any more!  So while this was a resource
>>>> community members found useful, accessibility was still a problem.
>>>>
>>>> The issue remains a difficult one... I feel that if you have a few
>>>> people
>>>> working on the ground in language communities who can share the
>>>> information
>>>> that is contained in grammars and dictionaries in a meaningful way, then
>>>> you're doing more than a book on a shelf can do. Furthermore, if
>>>> producers
>>>> of such materials have involved community members in their production,
>>>> then
>>>> you've already make good headway even before publication. A good
>>>> training
>>>> program, support for community language work and/or involvement in
>>>> resource
>>>> production will counter the expense or inaccessibility of published
>>>> resources, in my opinion.
>>>>
>>>> You can't really tell from the outside anyway - some linguists may have
>>>> an
>>>> expensive publication but disseminate dozens of PDFs or printouts to
>>>> community for free. Others may have a great publication but move on to
>>>> another language or job and become inaccessible to community members.
>>>>
>>>> My two cents on an important issue...
>>>>
>>>> Cheers,
>>>> Greg.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> ______________________________**__
>>>> On 19/12/2011 9:41 AM Peter Keegan wrote:
>>>>
>>>> From  RNLD Twitter
>>>>
>>>> >A new grammar and lexicon of #Siraya language of Taiwan has been
>>>> > published. Great news for those revitalising
>>>> >Siraya
>>>> > http://www.degruyter.de/cont/**imp/mouton/detailEn.cfm?id=IS-**
>>>> 9783110252958-1<http://www.degruyter.de/cont/imp/mouton/detailEn.cfm?id=IS-9783110252958-1>
>>>>
>>>> This is excellent news for those of us that are Austronesians and/or
>>>> Austronesianists.
>>>>
>>>> But I can't help but wondering that, at USD $195 (eBook same price) and
>>>> written in English, whether or not
>>>> that this is really going to be of much use to Siraya speakers and those
>>>> interesting in revitalizing Siraya.
>>>>
>>>> Can anyone provide me with an example of a recent grammar/lexicon
>>>> produced
>>>> by a Linguist
>>>> that is accessible and that indigenous people actually find useful ?
>>>>
>>>> regards,
>>>>
>>>> Peter J Keegan (Auckland, New Zealand)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Dr Margaret Florey
>>> Co-Director and Senior Linguist
>>> Resource Network for Linguistic Diversity
>>>
>>> ph: +61 03 9662-4027 (office)
>>> skype: RNLDorg
>>> PO Box 627
>>> Carlton South, VIC 3053
>>> Australia
>>>
>>> www.rnld.org
>>> ABN 24 215 634 040
>>>
>>>
>
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