Fieldwork and Language Documentation

Language Revitalization Working Group

The Language Revitalization Working Group offers a space to critically examine theories, methodologies, and applications of language revitalization in a variety of world contexts. Additionally, we provide a centralized venue for interdisciplinary researchers and practitioners of language revitalization to share, present, discuss, and improve their language revitalization efforts.

In Fall 2024, we will meet every other Wednesday from 3-4 p.m. (PST) in a hybrid format: if you're on campus you can join us in-person, and if you're not, you can join via...

CLA Updates

November 21, 2024

Here's the latest from the California Language Archive:

This week we host the fourth visit supported by the new CLA Community Research Grant: Kawaiisu community members and collaborating linguists (left to right) Merlene Everson, Laura Grant, Sophia Kendrick, and Brandi Kendrick. They are consulting on the cataloging of the forthcoming Maurice L. Zigmond Collection of Uto-Aztecan Language Materials acquired in April of last year. The CLA has previously collaborated with Grant, Everson, and others to archive the born-digital collection Kawaiisu Conversations and Landscapes Project, which features the voices of Everson's mother, the late Betty Girado Hernandez, her aunt, and uncle.

Kawaiisu CLA visit

CLA Updates

September 26, 2024

Here's the latest from the California Language Archive:

We've accessioned digital copies of 18 wax cylinder recordings held by the Hearst Museum of Anthropology as part of our efforts to finish digitizing the collection of wax cylinders at UC Berkeley (see here for more...

UC Berkeley linguistics department offers couse on Kalaallisut language

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‘Welcome!’

This fall the Department of Linguistics at UC Berkeley offers students a unique opportinuty to learn about Kalaallisut, the official language of Greenland. The course is co-taught by Kalaallisut speakers Ellen Thrane and Grethe Schmidt and linguist Line Mikkelsen. The students in the...

Berkeley linguists at Language Documentation and Archiving conference

September 5, 2024

Becky Jarvis, Tzintia Montaño Ramírez, and Zachary O'Hagan are in Berlin this week giving presentations and posters at Language Documentation and Archiving at the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften (pictured here with organizing committee member Kelsey Neely, PhD 2019; Amalia Skilton, PhD 2019; and Bernat Bardagil, postdoc 2018-2020).

Berkeley linguists at Language Documentation and Archiving conference

CLA updates

August 29, 2024

Here's the latest from the California Language Archive:

Julianne Kapner has accessioned a new collection of recordings and transcripts of word lists and oral histories from the ongoing Armenian Language in the Bay Area (ALBA) Project. Josefina Bittar (UCSC) has accessioned the Corpus del Español y Guaraní Paraguayos de Asunción, 14 sociolinguistic interviews in Paraguayan Guaraní (Tupí-Guaraní; Paraguay) and Spanish from 2015. Emanuele Fabiano, Joshua Homan, Manuel and Samuel Nuribe Arahuata, and Zachary O'Hagan have accessioned a new collection of audio and video recordings of interviews predominantly in Urarina (isolate; Peru) about the history of the Urituyacu River, especially the history of Omurano people, based on collaborative research from 2022.

Profs Sande and Jenks publish paper on Guébie definiteness

August 19, 2024

Professors Hannah Sande and Peter Jenks published a paper, co-authored with Malte Zimmermann (Potsdam) and Guébie community member Badiba Olivier Agodio, on definiteness in Guébie in the TripleA proceedings. The full citation information and link to the paper are as follows: Agodio, Badiba Olivier, Peter Jenks, Hannah Sande, and Malte Zimmermann. 2024. Indexed definiteness without demonstratives in GuébieIn Lecavelier, Jeanne, Niklas Geick, Mira Grubic, Prarthanaa Bharadwaj, Malte Zimmermann, eds. Proceedings of TripleA 10: Fieldwork perspectives on the semantics of African, Asian and Austronesian languages.

Topics on the syntax of Kawahíva: A Tupí-Guaraní language from the Brazilian Amazon

Wesley dos Santos
2024

Graduate Field Methods Course History

This page summarizes the history of graduate instruction in linguistic field methods at Berkeley, with information about academic year, language(s), consultant(s), and instructor(s), when known. Links in the Language column are to archival collections in the California Language Archive (CLA). The information has been reconstructed from archival course catalogs, which occasionally do not reflect the ultimate instructor of record, and in consultation with Linguistics faculty, graduate students, alumni, and records in the CLA. We will...

Onomatopoeia in Guébie (Kru)

Hannah Sande
2024

This chapter focuses on describing the vast system of Guébie onomatopoeias and their relationship to the rest of the language’s grammatical system. Comparisons are made to other Kru languages where possible.