Fieldwork and Language Documentation

Survey updates

February 15, 2021

Here's the latest from the Survey of California and Other Indian Languages:

We released a new collection of materials on Tswefap (Grassfields Bantu; Cameroon), from the 2015-2016 graduate field methods course. The consultant was Guy Tchatchouang, the instructors were Larry Hyman and Steven Bird, and students were Geoff Bacon, Andrew Cheng, Emily Clem, Ginny Dawson, Anna Jurgensen, Erik Maier, and Alice Shen.

Survey updates

February 10, 2021

Here's the latest from the Survey of California and Other Indian Languages:

We've digitized over 3000 lexical file slips of Makah (Wakashan, WA) made by Berkeley linguistics alum William Jacobsen, Jr. (PhD 1964). File slips were the primary way of organizing lexical data before the advent of tools like FieldWorks Language Explorer (FLEx).

Survey updates

February 2, 2021

Here's the latest from the Survey of California and Other Indian Languages:

Emily Drummond has added the first Zoom-based documentary materials in our holdings to her growing collection on Nukuoro (Polynesian-Outlier, Micronesia; see items 2019-14.129 and higher), video recordings of elicitation on grammatical topics and of work editing a phrasebook, and typed field notes. Kenny Baclawski, Jr. (PhD 2019) has added some 70 new file bundles to his collection on Eastern Cham (Chamic, Vietnam; see items 2014-20.069 and higher), audio recordings and notes of grammatical and sociolinguistic elicitation conducted during fieldwork in Vietnam in 2016 and 2018. We archived a new collection of sound recordings of Lulamogi (Bantu, Uganda), which derive from the fall 2013 undergraduate field methods course (Linguistics 140) taught by Larry Hyman, with language consultant Andrew Mukacha.

Focus in Caquinte

Zachary O'Hagan
2020

López Márquez publishes on headless relative clauses

January 20, 2021

Congrats to Wendy López Márquez, whose paper 'Headless Relative Clauses in Sierra Popoluca' has appeared in the new Oxford University Press book Headless Relative Clauses in Mesoamerican Languages!

Survey updates

January 11, 2021

Here's the latest from the Survey of California and Other Indian Languages:

Maks Dąbkowski has archived over 65 file bundles of audio and video recordings of texts in A'ingae (isolate, Ecuador). The materials stem from his 2019 fieldwork in the community of Sinangoé, with 21 different consultants and especially the contributions of Shen Aguinda and Leidy Quenamá as interviewers, transcribers, and translators.

O'Hagan joins Survey as postdoc

January 13, 2021

The Survey of California and Other Indian Languages is very happy to announce that Zachary O'Hagan (PhD, 2020) is joining the Survey, effective immediately, for a two-year stint as a Postdoctoral Scholar (and de facto Archive Manager) working on a project to archive language materials from the work of Leanne Hinton, Margaret Langdon, Frank Lobo, and Pamela Munro with a variety of California (and other) Indigenous communities. (The project is funded by an NEH grant through the NEH-NSF Documenting Endangered Languages program.) Congrats, Zach!

Mikkelsen and colleagues publish in Language

December 17, 2020

Congrats to Line Mikkelsen, whose paper Forms and functions of backward resumption: The case of Karuk, co-authored with Karuk tribal members Charron (Sonny) Davis, Vina Smith, Nancy Super (née Jerry), Peter Super Sr., and Charlie Thom Sr., has just appeared in Language! As the paper notes in its opening paragraph:

The research on Karuk reported here is the outcome of a collaboration between Karuk master speakers and Elders Sonny Davis, Julian Lang, the late Vina Smith, Nancy Super (née Jerry), the late Peter Super, Sr., and the late Charlie Thom, Sr.; Karuk language learners, researchers, and teachers Tamara Alexander, Robert Manuel, Crystal Richardson, Susan Gehr, Arch Super, Florrine Super, and Franklin (Frankie) Thom; and UC Berkeley linguists Andrew Garrett, Erik Maier, Line Mikkelsen, Karie Moorman, Ruth Rouvier, and Clare Sandy in Yreka, California, starting in 2010 and continuing through 2020. The work includes language documentation, linguistic analysis, language learning, development of language curriculum, educational support, language teaching, working through texts, (re)transcribing legacy recordings, linguistic elicitation with verbal and visual stimuli, and the development of ararahih-'urípih (= Karuk language net; http://linguistics.berkeley.edu/~karuk/index.php), an online dictionary and morphologically parsed text corpus.

Survey updates

November 16, 2020

Here's the latest from the Survey of California and Other Indian Languages:

We've catalogued new paper materials related to Q'anjob'al (Mayan; Guatemala, Mexico; item 2016-01.048 and above) that derive from the department's 1986-1987 field methods course, with speaker Rafael Pascual and instructor Leanne Hinton. The course was followed by an undergraduate course on K'iche' (Linguistics 175) in fall 1987, and a combined undergraduate-graduate seminar (Linguistics 198/298) on Mayan languages in spring 1988, both taught by Prof. Hinton.

O'Hagan defends dissertation

November 20, 2020

Congratulations to Zach O'Hagan, who will defend his dissertation, "Focus in Caquinte," on Tuesday, November 24, 9am-12pm. Please click here for the full schedule and abstract. Everyone is warmly invited: https://berkeley.zoom.us/j/93235048189. (A celebration will take place at 5pm: https://berkeley.zoom.us/j/95596376015.)