News

Congrats to Berkeley PhD alumni Nicholas Rolle (2018) and John T. M. Merrill (2018) on the publication of their article "Tone-driven epenthesis in Wamey" in Phonology!

The first two volumes of Amazonian languages: An international handbook were officially published on January 30. Edited by Patience Epps and Lev Michael, these two volumes present grammatical descriptions of all reasonably well-attested linguistic isolates of the Greater Amazonian region. Volume I covers Aikanã to Kandozi-Shapra, and Volume II covers Kanoé to Yurakaré. (A chapter in Volume III will summarize what we know about the more poorly-attested isolates and small language families known only from colonial-era materials.)

Linguists currently or formerly affiliated with Berkeley contributed significantly to these volumes:

Introduction (freely available online): Patience Epps (UT Austin) and Lev Michael

Aʔɨwa: Christine Beier and Lev Michael

Cholón: Astrid Alexander-Bakkerus (University of Amsterdam) and Kelsey Caitlyn Neely (Endangered Languages Documentation Programme; Berkeley PhD 2019)

Muniche: Lev Michael, Stephanie Farmer (Berkeley PhD 2015), Greg Finley (Meta, Berkeley PhD 2015), Karina Sullón Acosta (Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos), Christine Beier, Alejandrina Chanchari Icahuate (Munichis, Peru), Donalia Icahuate Baneo (Munichis, Peru), and Melchor Sinti Saita (Munichis, Peru)

Mỹky: Bernat Bardagil (University of Groningen; Berkeley postdoc 2017-2020)

Omurano: Zachary O'Hagan (Berkeley PhD 2020)

Taushiro: Zachary O'Hagan

Warao: Andrés Romero-Figueroa (Universidad Católica Andrés Bello) and Konrad Rybka (University of Leiden; Berkeley postdoc 2015-2018)

In addition, Zachary O'Hagan was the editorial assistant in the first several years of the project.

The next volumes in the series will focus on the small language families of Greater Amazonia, and the final volumes, on the large language families of the region.

In and around the Department of Linguistics in the next week:

• Fieldwork Forum - Wednesday Feb 1 - Zoom (password: fforum) and Dwinelle 1303 - 3:10-4pm
  Gilles Polian (Center for Research and Higher Studies in Social Anthropology): "The Tseltal Multidialectal Dictionary."
• Phorum - Friday Jan 27 - Dwinelle 1229 - 3-4:30pm
  Mykel Brinkerhoff (UC Santa Cruz): "Testing the Laryngeal Complexity Hypothesis: Evidence from Santiago Laxopa Zapotec."
• Syntax and Semantics Circle - Friday Feb 3 - Dwinelle 1303 and Zoom - 3-4:30pm
  Aglaia von Götz (UC Berkeley): TBD.

Congratulations to Isaac Bleaman, Katie Cugno (SF State), and Annie Helms on the publication of their article "Medium-shifting and intraspeaker variation in conversational interviews" in Language Variation and Change! The article is available in Open Access here.

In the last days of 2022, the Diccionario Iquito-Castellano was published by Editorial Abya Yala, a publisher devoted to works related to the Indigenous peoples of Latin America. This dictionary was compiled by Lev Michael and Christine Beier and documents the lexical, cultural, and grammatical knowledge of Jaime Pacaya Inuma, Ema Llona Yareja, Hermenegildo Díaz Cuyasa, and Ligia Inuma Inuma. This edition of the dictionary was prepared with the Spanish language assistance of Jaime Montoya Samamé.

Copies of the dictionary were delivered to the Iquito community of San Antonio last week, and last Friday, the dictionary was presented to the community at a long-anticipated ceremony. Each family present received a copy of the dictionary, and Lev and Chris have been continuing to distribute copies as families that were out of the community at the time drop by the Iquito language center to get their own copies. Photos and further details about the dictionary presentation ceremony are available here.

Here's the latest from the California Language Archive:

• Shweta Akolkar has accessioned the new collection Bishnupriya Manipuri Language Documentation Materials (Indo-Aryan; India, Bangladesh), based on a collaboration with Uttam Singha and other speakers. The collection represents a kind of archival collection that has come to exist originally due to the COVID-19 pandemic, consisting of audio and/or video recordings of Zoom calls where notes are shared onscreen and later bundled with the same recording files as PDFs.

In and around the Department of Linguistics in the next week:

• QP Fest - Monday Jan 23 - Dwinelle 370 - 3:10-4:35pm
  Rescheduled from fall 2022. Please click here for the schedule of talks.
• Fieldwork Forum - Wednesday Jan 25 - Dwinelle 1303 and Zoom (password: fforum) - 3:10-4pm
  Margarita Martínez Pérez (Universidad de Ciencias y Artes de Chiapas): "¿Ser investigadora desde adentro es más fácil?: Experiencias de colaboración en el trabajo de campo para la documentación lingüística comunitaria."
• Phorum - Friday Jan 20 - Dwinelle 1229 - 3-4:30pm
  Sarang Jeong (Stanford): "The relation between perception and production in an ongoing sound change: A pilot experiment on the younger group's perception of Korean three-way stop contrast."
• Phorum - Friday Jan 27 - Dwinelle 1229 - 3-4:30pm
  Mykel Brinkerhoff (UC Santa Cruz): "Testing the Laryngeal Complexity Hypothesis: Evidence from Santiago Laxopa Zapotec."
• Sociolinguistics Lab at Berkeley - Monday Jan 23 - Dwinelle 5125 and Zoom - 2-3pm
  Discussion of Vida-Castro 2022.
• Syntax and Semantics Circle - Friday Jan 20 - Dwinelle 1303 and Zoom - 3-4:30pm
  Line Mikkelsen (UC Berkeley): "Hyperraising to object in Kalaallisut."

Julia Peck was featured in an article on Ladino language revitalization in California Magazine, a publication of the Cal Alumni Association. Check it out here!

Isaac Bleaman is giving a talk at the Workshop on Language Variation and Change at the University of Chicago (virtually) on Friday, January 20, from 1:30 to 3pm Pacific time.

Justin Davidson and Hispanic Linguists from UCLA and UC Santa Cruz were awarded a UC Multicampus Research Initiative Grant! The project, entitled "An interdisciplinary approach to the study of Spanish-English bilingualism in California," lasts for at least two years and expands Professor Davidson's Corpus of Bay Area Spanish to now include Spanish-English bilinguals across all of California. Read more about the grant here!

Here's the latest from the California Language Archive:

• Toward the end of December, we released our first newsletter! If you are on the ling-dept email list, you received it, but consider subscribing individually.
• We digitized an important VHS recording of Milton "Bun" Lucas telling stories in Kashaya (Pomoan; CA) in 1993. Mr. Lucas was also the language consultant for the 1989-1990 graduate field methods course.
• We accessioned the John H. Davis Collection of Materials on the Sliammon Language, currently consisting of 1,369 pages of original field notes on ʔayajuθəm, also known as Mainland Comox (Salishan; WA, British Columbia). The notes were donated by linguist John Davis in November, and feature work with speakers Mary George, Noel George Harry, and Tommy Paul, among many others. In the future, we will digitize reel-to-reel tapes, combine them with those already in the John H. Davis Collection of Sliammon Sound Recordings, and merge them into this collection.
• We accessioned the Heather Hardy Collection of Tolkapaya Yavapai Language Materials, consisting of field notes, dissertation notes, and lexical file slips related to this Yuman language of Arizona. The materials were donated by Heather Hardy in August 2021, and feature work with speaker Molly Fasthorse. In the future, we will digitize cassette tapes, and add them as another series to this collection. Prof. Hardy began working with Mrs. Fasthorse as part of a UCLA graduate field methods course in the mid-1970s.
• We accessioned three collections related to Berkeley field methods courses taught by Richard Rhodes from the late 1980s:
• Tigrinya 1987-1988, with speaker Tesfai Haile (graduate course)
• Vietnamese 1988-1989 (graduate course)
• Lakota 1989, with speaker Faye Moreno (undergraduate course)

In and around the Department of Linguistics in the next week:

• Fieldwork Forum - Wednesday Jan 18 - Dwinelle 1303 and Zoom (password: fforum) - 3:10-4pm
  Melissa Gomes (UC Davis): "Konkani in America: A Mixed Methods Approach to Understanding Heritage Language Maintenance."
• Phorum - Friday Jan 20 - Dwinelle 1229 - 3-4:30pm
  Sarang Jeong (Stanford): "The relation between perception and production in an ongoing sound change: A pilot experiment on the younger group's perception of Korean three-way stop contrast."
• Syntax and Semantics Circle - Friday Jan 20 - Dwinelle 1303 and Zoom - 3-4:30pm
  Line Mikkelsen (UC Berkeley): "Hyperraising to object in Kalaallisut."

The second workshop for the NSF-funded South American Nasality Project was held in Berkeley December 12-16 at the Hotel Shattuck Plaza. Eleven participants from nine universities (pictured below) reported on preliminary results from phonetic fieldwork with speakers of ten Amazonian languages, while the project PIs (Faytak, Lapierre, and Michael) led discussions on various aspects of methodology and workflow. Originally slated for December 2020, both fieldwork and the workshop were delayed by two years by the COVID-19 pandemic, so all were enthusiastic to get the project back on track!

Physically present (L to R): Lorena Orjuela (UT Austin), Marina Magalhães (Universidade de Brasilia), Jorge Rosés Labrada (University of Alberta), Thiago Chacon (Universidade de Brasilia), Myriam Lapierre (University of Washington), Kelsey Neely (ELDP), Wilson da Silva (University of Arizona), Matt Faytak (SUNY Buffalo), Wesley dos Santos (UC Berkeley); Projected (L to R): Lev Michael (UC Berkeley), Adam Singerman (Syracuse University)