Just over a year ago I wrote a blog post about some of the parameters involved in transcribing media files, and how long it takes to do various sorts of transcription, translation and annotation tasks. In the commentary on my post, the ELAN transcription software tool developed at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics at … Read more
Over the past 10 years or so it has become increasingly common for researchers working on endangered languages to deposit their recordings and analysis (transcriptions, translations, annotations, dictionaries, grammars etc.) in a language archive1 In fact, in Himmelmann’s manifesto on language documentation (HImmelmann 1998, 2002, see also Himmelmann 2006) and Woodbury’s seminal articles (Woodbury 2003, … Read more
For young people in remote areas of Australia, there’s a correlation between speaking an Indigenous language and better well-being. That’s today’s message from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Here’s their media release. “The report found that in 2008, almost half (47%) of all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander youth (aged 15–24 years) in remote areas … Read more
Jeff Good has written a blog post about how citation metadata was dealt with in various file conversions for the Lexicon Enhancement via the GOLD Ontology (LEGO) project. His post was written in response to my discussion and follow up (plus James McElvenny’s contribution) about citation practices of data aggregators like LEGO and PanLex. Jeff’s … Read more
Continuum International Publishing Group has just sent me a complimentary copy of Jim Miller’s new textbook A Critical Introduction to Syntax which includes a chapter on “Noun Phrases and Non-configurationality” (pages 61-98). Since this is a topic I have published on (Austin and Bresnan 1996, Austin 2001a, 2001b) I figured I’d have a quick look … Read more
The published grammar of the Kalkatungu language of western Queensland has this entry in the ‘Weapons, tools, etc.’ section of the glossary:
‘pump’ (decoy device for attracting birds) kuɭumpu1 (Blake 1979:179)
‘What on earth is that?’ I said to myself, and wondered also why whatever it is would attract the English word for a fluid pumping device (let alone a type of footwear!).
CALL FOR PAPERS Sustainable data from digital research: Humanities perspectives on digital scholarship Dates: 12-14th December 2011 Venue: University of Melbourne, Australia A PARADISEC conference http://paradisec.org.au/2011Conf.html Digital methods for recording information are now ubiquitous. In fieldwork-based disciplines, like linguistics, musicology, anthropology and so on, recordings are typically of high cultural value and there is great … Read more
Linguist Position – Northern Territory Department of Education and Training, Central Australia 6 month contract July-Dec 2011 The NT DET linguist is responsible for supporting Indigenous and non-Indigenous teachers working in Indigenous Language and Culture programs in remote and urban Central Australian schools. This involves travel to remote communities, organising and facilitating professional learning workshops, … Read more
My colleagues teaching modern European languages are really into plaiting/braiding — recycling bins, speed dating, Tintin cartoons, Dante, and revolutionary songs in Uruguay are entwined with their language teaching. So now, if you were going to work with Aboriginal people to make a language/culture plait, what would it contain? I found an answer thanks to … Read more
In a recent blog post James McElvenny presents a broad-ranging discussion about copyright, in response to my earlier post about the use of materials from my published work without attribution by the PanLex project. James covers a lot of ground and brings in many different aspects, including his frustrations that he “can’t play region-coded DVDs … Read more
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