Lote is an Oceanic language of Papua New Guinea with which the author conducted brief field research in 2022. Although the language had already been relatively well described, it lacked full coverage in grammatical and lexical databases, which are valuable tools for typologists and historical linguists. This paper has two aims. The first is to present data on Lote that can be used to fill gaps in linguistic databases. The second is to offer suggestions to other linguists on how to help expand comparative databases, especially with data pertaining to languages of the Pacific.
We developed and used a series of simple images for eliciting nominal quantifiers in Akuzipik, an endangered Alaska Native language. We developed the images with an eye to "filling in" the existing documentation, having compared previously documented quantifiers to a cross-linguistic quantifier questionnaire. However, as the images were intended to elicit previously undocumented or under-documented quantifiers, they were designed to evoke general quantificational semantic spaces rather than specific English lexical items. After outlining our development process, we describe how the images were created using open-source software and how they were employed via a messaging client for distance fieldwork during the global pandemic. We then present and discuss successful and unsuccessful elicitation scenarios in which the images were employed and offer thoughts regarding their use. The images are available for use under a Creative Commons license.
In some local language communities, intergenerational transmission of the vernacular occurs later than expected. The aim of this study is to demonstrate that an under-documented acquisition pattern exists as a norm in many communities worldwide. We propose the term Deferred Vernacular Production (DVP) to refer to a language acquisition pattern in which members of a minority language community first acquire a majority language at home, and then later begin to naturally produce their local vernacular at some point after early childhood-outside the home, and without any intervention. Three case studies are provided: S & atilde;otomense, Angolar, and Molise Croatian. Differences in the timing of speech onset, defined as the phase of socialization when active use of the vernacular begins, are discussed in each case study. Reports of DVP in 31 languages across the globe are then provided, suggesting this is a worldwide phenomenon. A variant of this phenomenon, Prolonged Vernacular Acquisition (PVA), is proposed as a target for future research, along with a generic term, Late Vernacular Acquisition (LVA), to include both DVP and PVA. Finally, the diverse motivations reported by speakers for this practice are presented, and implications of DVP for language vitality studies are discussed.
The Institute on Collaborative Language Research (CoLang) is a biennial training venue for language documentation and revitalization. It aims to assist all stakeholders, who collaborate across the boundaries of speaking communities and academe. While including Indigenous participation has always been a goal of CoLang, that goal has been conceived and realized differently at each meeting, and it has been common for the number of non-Indigenous linguists to exceed that of Indigenous participants. To address this issue, when planning CoLang 2022 we focused on CoLang's stated goal by expanding on the concept of collaboration. As a result, the number of Indigenous attendees was twice what we expected, and over 70 Indigenous communities from throughout the world were represented. We consider that CoLang 2022 was a turning point in changing the approach to reach the actual goal of CoLang. We hope that the changes we initiated will be perpetuated and that persisting issues will be addressed at future CoLang Institutes. In this article, we (i) discuss the increase in Indigenous participation in CoLang 2022, (ii) describe the process of designing CoLang 2022 toward that goal, and (iii) address the issues and challenges that remain for future CoLang meetings.
Practitioners and researchers have argued that revitalizing a minoritized language requires fostering positive community attitudes towards that language. However, positive feelings for a heritage language do not necessarily correlate with behaviors or with positive feelings for one's own abilities. This article investigates individual language revitalization practitioners' attitudes and ideologies about L2 language learning through the lens of the word fluency. Drawing on analysis of qualitative interviews with 28 practitioners, I identify three different orientations to fluency suggested by the ways practitioners employed this key term: fluency as an ultimate L1-like competency standard, as a scalar measure for continual improvement, or as a way to itemize domains of language use. These orientations towards fluency suggest underlying ideologies of speaker legitimacy-whether L2 learners can be counted as legitimate users of the language. By considering orientations to this term, practitioners and researchers can carefully unpack ideologies in order to challenge deficit views of L2 users in revitalization and to foster positive momentum in community efforts.
The Kulu Language Institute is an innovative Indigenous language school developed by, for, and with speakers of Luqa (lga) and Kubokota (ghn) in Solomon Islands. Globally, scholarly discussions of Indigenous language learning tend to focus on revitalisation, documentation, or preservation, but Kulu is focused firmly on people rather than language. Using a vivid vernacular metalanguage to teach students about the grammar of their own language, the curriculum provides a bridge for students to navigate linguistic, communication, ideological, intellectual, and capacity gaps they face every day. Over twenty-five years, thousands of Ranoqans have undertaken the study of their own language. Some come to Kulu because they cannot read at all. Others have completed many years of school but believe that studying the structure of their own language will help them grasp the grammar of English, which is both the official language of Solomon Islands and the primary language of schooling. Still others are simply amazed at the way that language itself works. By describing the development of the Kulu curriculum and the unexpected ways it is changing people's lives, this article contributes to a growing global literature on innovative pedagogical movements in Indigenous-led schools. We show how metalinguistic awareness can empower Indigenous learners: they come to appreciate the patterned complexity of their own language and gain confidence in their own intellectual capacity to move across languages.
This paper provides the first sketch analyses of Wauyai Ma'ya and Batta, two undocumented Austronesian languages spoken in the Raja Ampat archipelago of northwest New Guinea. These sketches are based on survey data collected in 2019 and 2023. Both languages are endangered, in that the youngest fluent speakers are in their forties. The languages are closely related, and typologically similar. Wauyai has 14 consonants, 5 vowels, and a cross-linguistically unusual combination of contrastive stress and lexical tone; Batta has 15 consonants, 6 vowels, tone, and no contrastive stress but a largely sesquisyllabic profile. Both are head-marking, with head-initial NPs, an alienability distinction, and basic SV/AVO order which combines with clause-final aspect/mood and negative markers. The pronominal systems of Wauyai and Batta make a five- and a four-way number distinction, respectively; subjects of verbal clauses are marked with prefixes and infixes in both languages. After outlining and exemplifying these features and touching on several others, I conclude with a brief outlook on the future of the indigenous languages and cultures of Raja Ampat.
Many languages around the world are at different levels of endangerment due to varied reasons. The situation in Nagaland is no different, as all languages spoken by the Nagas are categorised as Vulnerable. The present state is a result of the rapid changes in Naga society over the past 150 years, pushed by education, urbanisation, and modernity. Nagaland is a state in north east India, inhabited by about 20 tribes speaking different languages. Today, in addition to their respective mother tongues, English and Nagamese are widely spoken, with Hindi used occasionally in certain domains. Hence, Nagas have become a truly multilingual society. Given the complex situation, it is important to examine the use of language in various domains, which will help one determine the status of these languages. In this paper, I examine the language use pattern among 2,984 undergraduate students of Nagaland in the home domain (parents, grandparents, siblings, and relatives); informal domain (friends and markets); and the formal domain (institutions, offices, and churches); and their knowledge of the mother tongue. The survey shows that while the use of one's mother tongue is strong within the home domain, it is strongest between respondents and (grand)parents, while the use of English and Nagamese is increasing between respondents and siblings at the cost of the mother tongue. This points to a generational difference in the use of the mother tongue. This is corroborated by the survey involving respondents and friends (within the same tribe) where use of mother tongue is strong but Nagamese is not far behind. An interesting result is the high usage of English and Nagamese in churches, a formal domain where the mother tongue has strong status. New domains such as social media have not helped the situation, which are heavily dominated by English. The generational difference and use of mother tongue in fewer domains is reflected in the respondent's level of knowledge of folktales, folksongs, proverbs, and idioms, and specific terms related to flora and fauna, address terms, traditional ornaments, weaving/basketry, and agriculture, which is far from satisfactory. The paper advocates strengthening of mother tongue education by all stakeholders in a major way, failing which, our mother tongues will lose to English and Nagamese.
The Balinese Homesign Corpus is a collection of homesign varieties that emerged within the same gestural context as sign languages that are used in northern Bali, such as Kata Kolok. This paper provides a detailed account of the data collection process carried out by a group of local research assistants. An ethnographic overview of the social interaction among homesigners with Kata Kolok signers is also provided. We suggest that several factors, such as topography, gender-specific norms, and technology, may play a role in the social networks of the homesigners. Furthermore, we observe that homesigners in Bali are not living in complete isolation. While they might not have full access to all domains of social life, they are tightly integrated into religious duties and family routines. This paper highlights the importance of locally led data collection for improving the ecological validity and the quality of data. We suggest methods like mobile ethnographic filmmaking (Moriarty 2020) could provide valuable insights into the role of social interaction in the emergence of homesign in future work.
At 178 hours and 853,348 words, the Gurindji Kriol corpus (Meakins & Algy 2004) is currently the largest annotated corpus of an Australian Indigenous language, and is a significant record of the community's language use in a complex multilingual environment. Together with the Gurindji corpus, four generations of language use and change in the Gurindji community are represented, including the rare emergence of a mixed language. In this paper, we present details on the development of this corpus, in particular the complex processes of corralling this data into a consistent format that enables quantitative and computational work. The scale, breadth and consistency of the corpus has enabled innovative research into questions of language variation, contact, emergence and change; and has helped the Gurindji community to better understand linguistic changes and continuities across generations. Data-cleaning and annotation are often overlooked in discussions of data management within the field of language documentation. However, they are important steps in any quantitative research, and the amount of work required can be significantly reduced with thoughtful automation. Our approach, drawn from industry best practice, may provide a useful model for others working on the development of corpora of low-resource languages.
A central aim of Language Documentation is the creation and storage of lasting, multi-purpose collections of endangered-language texts, with accompanying annotation. Despite many important developments in the field over the last two decades, there has been no systematic attempt to research or theorise the translation processes or resulting translated texts involved in language documentation work. In this paper I argue that translation practices in Language Documentation can be linked to the field's social justice goals, and decisions to translate (or not) determine whether a collection can be useful beyond the initial documentation project. I present a study of macro-level translation methods based on a corpus of 1088 texts from 10 deposits in the Endangered Languages Archive (ELAR). I survey the decisions made by researchers of which texts to translate, which genres to translate, which languages to translate into and choice of translator. This research demonstrates how a key development from the field of Translation Studies, the notion of Translator Agency, could be integrated with Language Documentation to facilitate the production of more multi-purpose, useful translated texts that better support the field's social justice aims.
The Mapuche language is considered "definitely endangered" by UNESCO (Moseley 2010). However, it is still spoken today in Chile and Argentina by the Mapuche people. In addition to the L1 speakers in these regions, young people are learning and teaching the language as an effort to revitalize the language. This paper provides an overview of eight proposals for a Mapuche writing system and how they attempt to find a balance between univocality, limiting confusion for L1 Spanish speakers, and respecting diverse language ideologies. Based on semi-structured interviews with ten Mapuzugun language revitalization activists living in the Biobio and Araucania regions of Chile, this paper provides an overview of Mapuzugun writing system proposals and language policies, highlighting the priorities, goals, and ideologies of language activists. Most participants did not believe that any writing system was inherently more favorable than the others. However, opinions ranged from encouraging one standard writing system to vehemently rejecting standardization. Despite these differences of opinion, they all justified their stances on the belief that their strategy (standardization or not) would do more to increase the number of Mapuzugun speakers and thus, be more effective in terms of achieving their shared vision of language revitalization and maintenance.
This work explores how four Navajo-speaking children, aged 4;07 to 11;02, and their caregivers use complex verb structures in everyday speech. The analysis focuses on four verb features: category, transitivity, mode, and person/number. Because Navajo verbs are highly complex, understanding how children navigate them provides valuable insight into polysynthetic language use. Findings show that both children and caregivers tend to favor the simplest verb forms in conversation. Moreover, the features most frequently used by children closely reflect those used by caregivers, suggesting that frequency effects play a key role in shaping language use. In some cases, children and adults pair simple verbs with postpositions to create phrasal verbs that convey broader meanings, demonstrating their versatility in natural speech. This research contributes to the limited body of work on polysynthetic language use by children and offers valuable insight into how young speakers navigate intricate grammatical systems.
This paper discusses foundational aspects of child language development for the benefit of language nests, which are immersion-based Indigenous language revitalization programs for children from birth through around age five. Our review of child language development research is guided by eight key questions that focus on: 1) when children begin to learn their first language(s), 2) the importance of amount of language input, 3) whether the type of language input matters, 4) milestones in language development, 5) variation among children, 6) if speaking another language is a problem, 7) bilingual language development, and 8) children with speech and language difficulties. Our responses draw from the scientific literature across fields such as child language development, linguistics, early childhood education, cognitive science, and psychology. After summarizing the research, we offer some suggestions and considerations for language nests based on the research. Ultimately, the goal of the article is to provide a useful resource that identifies key findings in child language development research in order to support families, educators, researchers, and communities working to establish and sustain language nests.
This paper examines selected grammatical properties of verbs from child-directed speech (CDS) in Northern East Cree, an Algonquian language spoken within Qu & eacute;bec. Using video recordings from the Chisasibi Child Language Acquisition Study, I analyze speech from one adult to one child from the ages of approximately two to four years. This study answers four research questions, which are drawn from the scientific literature on child language acquisition as well as interest expressed by language revitalization practitioners. Findings show that CDS seems to modify some facets of the Cree language, including using simpler verb classes, conjugations, and structures. At the same time, other grammatical characteristics of verbs in CDS do not show such general modifications, or they indicate that verbal structures become more complex as Ani ages. Additionally, context plays a significant role related to these grammatical patterns in CDS. This study concludes by discussing implications of these findings for revitalization practitioners and the scientific study of child language.
This paper explores the relationship between first language acquisition and language revitalization in Mayan languages, arguing that insights from first language acquisition can significantly enhance language revitalization efforts. It positions language revitalization as a valuable opportunity to support Indigenous activists in their effort to reclaim and revitalize their heritage language while fostering collaborative linguistic research. Drawing from Q'anjob'al child data and the Oxlajuj Aj immersion program for Itza', this paper further argues that new learners of an endangered language should be exposed to the spoken form of the language, adopting a communicative approach rather than a grammar approach. While the pedagogical materials developed for the revitalization of Itza' do not draw directly from Q'anjob'al child data, this child data illustrates how children naturally acquire language through repetition, questions, negation, and error-making. The Oxlajuj Aj immersion program is based on the communicative, physical response, and natural approaches, with emphasis on understanding and producing language in an interactive setting.
Saad K'idily & eacute; is a Navajo language nest dedicated to creating first-language speakers of Din & eacute; Bizaad. Prenatal families and children under age three are immersed in Navajo language and culture, where the use of English is strongly discouraged. In 2022, Saad K'idily & eacute; partnered with UNM's Indigenous Child Language Research Center to document how Din & eacute; Bizaad is spoken to and learned by children. In the nest, caregiver speech is rich, engaging, and almost entirely in Navajo, with less than 1% of English use. Descriptions of caregivers' attention-grabbing speech and their most frequently produced words are provided. A closer look at children's speech, including their babbling and vocalizations, shows that many early words mirror adult language, with particles appearing before nouns and verbs. The findings of this work are intended to support Saad K'idily & eacute;'s mission to foster a new generation of Navajo speakers and ensure Din & eacute; Bizaad will continue into the future.
Phonetic forced alignment can greatly expedite spoken language analysis by providing automatic time alignments at the word and phone levels. In the case of low-resource languages, it remains an open question whether phone-level forced alignment will be more successful with a small language-specific acoustic model or a high-resource cross-language acoustic model. The present study directly compared the forced alignment performance of language-specific and cross-language acoustic models using the Urum and Evenki datasets from the DoReCo Corpus. We evaluated six language-specific acoustic models trained with 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, or approximately 70 minutes of language-specific speech data against four English-based cross-language acoustic models that differed in size and accent homogeneity (large Global English or homogeneous American English of varying data amounts). Acoustic models were developed or obtained from the Montreal Forced Aligner and evaluated against held-out manually aligned phone boundaries. Overall, the Global English model and the larger language-specific acoustic models were competitive with one another and outperformed the homogeneous cross-language and smaller language-specific acoustic models. From this analysis, we recommend that researchers use a language-specific model with at least 25 minutes of actual speech (not just recording duration) or a large, diverse cross-language acoustic model for low-resource forced alignment.
Maintaining and revitalising languages calls for extensive supporting materials, materials which are relevant to the domains of knowledge that people wish to master, and which are culturally safe relative to local pedagogies. For sustainability, such materials should also be easy to create, and not dependent on significant outside expertise and technology. Over a period of two years, the authors worked with local people on the ground to establish a domain and safe learning methods, and codesigned a card game focused on food knowledge. The cards contain images of plant and animal foods, and facilitate teaching and learning of food practices. We conducted an evaluation of the cards and how people use them, and this revealed how the cards help to create a safe space for learning, and how they are flexible as to the domains of knowledge people wish to maintain. The evaluation also established that this approach is effective for supporting knowledge transmission in the interests of language maintenance and revitalization.
