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David Nathan

Endangered Languages Archive

Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Project

SOAS, University of London

Language Documentation and Archiving:

a Work in Progress

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Language documentation and archiving

a fickle relationship early documenters (e.g Franz Boas) had

preservation in mind modern documentation places archiving as

indispensible

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The way we were ... 1993

1993. The Aboriginal Studies Electronic Data Archive (ASEDA) was launched on gopher by the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies.

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The way we were ... ASEDA

received and catalogue electronic materials that were at risk lexica grammars texts

received on floppy disks, backed up using MO disks (later, CD)

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The way we were ... ASEDA

a web edition appeared in 1994, part of Coombsweb at ANU, the 5th website in Australia

(and on the same server, the first ever web dictionary in 1995)

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How things have changed since 1993

types of data (modalities and genres)now predominantly media/documentation

storage methodsnow “professional”, mass data systems

standardisation and metadatanow standards for data and metadata

disseminationnow web-based disseminationexpanded influence into practice and

workflow of linguists

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The way we were … 2004

documentation = description + x

x = ?

technology, archiving

(metadata, standardisation …)

documentary dogarchiving tail

X

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Back to basics?

we are finally moving away from formats to what to express knowledge structures eg semantically

organised grammars context, interpretation

and restoring curatorial roles curation as an explicit, indispensible,

creative, value-adding, component

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Social not search?

up until 2003 humans created 5 exabytes of data (five billion gigabytes).

We now create that much every day.

we increasingly want to find what we need via our people networks, not a company’s algorithm

if language documentation turns out as successful as we hope, then organising around language codes won’t be the way to go!

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Polarities

a ‘language resource’ approach or participatory approach?

do we aim to make it easier or make it richer?

are archivists data ‘shepherds’ or the partners in preservation and promotion?

are archivists automatons or artisans? are depositors, users and speakers them

or us?

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End