Alaska Native Language Archive

Gary HoltonANLC

E-MELD WorkshopAugust 2002

Alaska Native Language Archive

E-MELD August 2002

Alaska Native Language Center

E-MELD August 2002

Alaska Native Language Center Established in 1972 by state legislation

as a center for documentation and cultivation of the state's 20 Native languages

Staff includes language teachers, linguists, and language specialists

Archiving is central to both the documentation and pedagogical missions

E-MELD August 2002

Alaska Native Languages Eskimo-Aleut (5) Athabascan-Eyak-

Tlingit (13) Haida (1) Tsimshian (1)

E-MELD August 2002

Endangerment Status

Numbers of speakers Central Yup'ik 10,000 Inupiaq 3100

(+71,500 in Canada and Kalaallisut) Eyak 1

Age of youngest speaker <2 (Siberian Yupik) >80 (Holikachuk, Deg Xinag, Haida, Eyak ... )

E-MELD August 2002

Documentation Status comprehensive published dictionaries for

4 of the 20 languages grammars for 3 languages dissertations on 5 other languages

E-MELD August 2002

Alaska Native Language Archive Primary linguistic data archive for the 20

Alaska Native languages Comprehensive -- nearly everything

written in or about Alaska Native langs Primary focus on unpublished manuscripts

and field notes Items include:

print (~10,000 items), audio (~4700 tapes), digital data (??)

E-MELD August 2002

Archive Mission preservation

long-term storage and maintenance digital archiving of print and audio materials

access controlled but straighforward access by

community members educators linguists

E-MELD August 2002

Community-driven primary users of archive are members of

Native language communities communities also taking a lead in

preservation and access projects Eyak Language Digitization Project Unangan Tape Archive

E-MELD August 2002

Types of linguistic data field notes texts manuscripts pedagogical materials lexica

comparative wordlists etymological wordlists placenames

E-MELD August 2002

Formats Historically a non-digital (paper and tape)

archive, but increasingly have to deal with digital formats image files (pdf) raw text files word processor database (FoxPro, Access) audio (wav, aif)

E-MELD August 2002

Goals map archive metadata and expose via

OLAC-compliant data provider done

digitize existing resources in progress

create framework for archiving new digital data go E-MELD!

E-MELD August 2002

Digital Lexical Data at ANLC unstructured text files (Eyak, Inupiaq) structured text files

Lexware (Koyukon) Shoebox (Tanacross, Holikachuk) other "standard format" (Alutiiq)

relational databases Access (Athabaskan-Eyak-Tlingit

Comparative Lexical Database)

E-MELD August 2002

Two Examples Koyukon Athabaskan Dictionary Athabaskan-Eyak-Tlingit Comparative

Lexical Database (AET-CLD)

E-MELD August 2002

Koyukon Athabascan Dictionary Eliza Jones & Jules Jetté,

ed. by James Kari stored as structure text file, formatted

using Bob Hsu's Lexware project began ca. 1979 (1898)

printed dictionary published 2000 electronic version in progress ...

E-MELD August 2002

Athabascan Morphology almost exclusively prefixing form of stem varies with TAM stem best represented by abstract lemma

or "root" lexeme consists of root plus one or more

(possibly discontinuous) prefixes

.rt ts'eyh$1pa ch$w'-tag wind blows..th (P+pp#)de+0+ts'eyh

ex hedeets'eyheng it is windy

(blowing on the area)...n bet'o deets'eye...n mek'oodaats'eeye

..th P+pp#(#)de+\+ts'eyh

..th P+pp#(#)de+0+ts'eyh

..th P+e#k'e+de+\+ts'eyh

..th 0+ts'eyh

...an menedaa\ts'eeye

..n,i e\ts'eeyh, -e\ts'eeye'...n E\ts'eeyh Zo'@...n k'ets'e e\ts'eeye...n e\ts'eeyh yeege'...n e\ts'eeyh doyeege'....n e\ts'eebaaye

Root

Subentry

Sub-subentry

Example

E-MELD August 2002

AET-CLD Jeff Leer, Giulia Oliverio, & Gary Holton project begun ca. 1997 comparative data at level of:

lexeme morpheme phoneme

hierarchical interactive, dynamic database

E-MELD August 2002

AET-CLD Structure

Cogset

Lex

Morph

Phone

Database structure (portion)

Cogset table

Lex table

Morph table (1)

Morph table (2)

...to obtain a copy of the AET-CLD Access database, please contact [email protected]