A Pedagogical Corpus to Support a Language Teaching Curriculum to Revitalize an Endangered Language

An obstacle to revitalizing an endangered language is the shortage of authentic speech samples for learners to use as models. Digital recordings of community elders performing traditional chores and special rituals or narrating legends and myths are often made to overcome this obstacle. These recordings, however, contain speech that lacks the crucial features of conversational speech that make them appropriate instructional models. Effective model utterances should be short, have a stand-alone format, and have similar structures to utterances used in everyday transactions, which must be labeled and tagged and organized into a searchable corpus. To date, however, no such corpus exists for indigenous languages, and compiling one is an enormous task. To provide native speech models for adult Labrador Inuit learning their endangered language, Inuttitut, the authors explored the feasibility of building a specialized corpus potentially useful for aiding classroom instruction, using an internationally recognized open-source search and retrieval system called Topic Maps to create its database.

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COVID’S EFFECT ON AN ENDANGERED LANGUAGE IN THE SYLHET AREA OF BANGLADESH

IARS' International Research Journal ◽

10.51611/iars.irj.v11i1.2021.151 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (1) ◽

pp. 17-24

Author(s):

Snehangshu Shekhar Chanda

Keyword(s):

Social Media ◽

Spoken Language ◽

The State ◽

Indigenous Languages ◽

National Language ◽

Ethnic Culture ◽

Endangered Language ◽

Book Group ◽

State Language ◽

The Way

Language is the way of communication and used in different aspects of life. In every country there is a national language which is the state language used in offices and different organizations. Bengali is the state and widely spoken language of Bangladesh however language varies from community to community, race to race, society to society This study shows that there are many indigenous languages in Bangladesh which may be endangered in future specially in the Sylhet area of Bangladesh. The Manipuri language which is not used officially in Bangladesh may be one such language. It has its own alphabets and is spoken in the community. The language has however not been hampered due to COVID 19 and in fact has become more popular during the lockdown. Due to the increase in the popularity of social media (face book group, Cheik Kheik) the Manipuri language in Sylhet, still maintains their ethnic culture and use their language in the home domain.

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Indigenous Language Rights—Miner’s Canary or Mariner’s Tern?

The Oxford Handbook of Endangered Languages ◽

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190610029.013.6 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 81-104

Author(s):

Teresa L. McCarty

Keyword(s):

Indigenous Peoples ◽

Knowledge Systems ◽

Indigenous Languages ◽

Self Determination ◽

Indigenous Language ◽

Language Loss ◽

Language Rights ◽

Research And Practice ◽

Language Planning And Policy ◽

Endangered Language

Drawing on the international literature in language planning and policy, this chapter examines Indigenous language rights. Like the diagnostic “miner’s canary,” the rights accorded or denied to Indigenous peoples reflect larger issues of equity and justice for minoritized- and endangered-language communities. The chapter begins with background on Indigenous peoples, their distinctive status as originary peoples and inherent sovereigns, the present state of Indigenous language vitality and endangerment, and the stakes involved in Indigenous language loss and reclamation. Following is an examination of research and practice in Indigenous language rights. A third section examines those rights in a key public domain: education. The chapter concludes with the implications of this work for the revitalization and sustainability of Indigenous languages and their associated cultural and knowledge systems. An aspirational alternative to the “miner’s canary” metaphor is offered, in which language rights are rooted in the principle and practice of Indigenous self-determination.

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An Overview of Itu Mbon Uso Consonants

Sumerianz Journal of Education, Linguistics and Literature ◽

10.47752/sjell.311.254.264 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 254-264

Author(s):

Idongesit Edo ◽

Okokon Akpan

Keyword(s):

Data Collection ◽

Indigenous Languages ◽

Secondary Sources ◽

Systematic Description ◽

Endangered Language ◽

Language Data ◽

Descriptive Framework ◽

Consonant Sounds

This study attempts a systematic description and classification of Itu Mbon Uso Consonants, using a descriptive framework. This research will provide a background study for the description of Itu Mbon Uso consonants. It aims to establish and provide a detailed study of the consonant sounds available in the Itu Mbon Uso language. Data was collected through primary and secondary sources. The trial version of the Ibadan 400 wordlist was used in data collection. In addition, there was the need to develop short sentences in the language so as to capture the pronunciation of words not found in the 400 wordlist and to show the position of each segment in words. The objective of this research is the need to develop our indigenous languages and save them from extinction, which should begin with the development of the orthography. The study revealed that they are seventeen phonemic and twenty phonetic consonants in Itu Mbon Uso with syllabic features such as aspiration and consonant processes like nasalization and palatalization. Our contribution is the provision of the consonantal inventory of the language which will act as a springboard for the eventual development of orthography for the language. The study is also important documentation of an endangered language, which had hitherto received little attention. It is recommended that research be carried out on the vowel system of the language to ensure an eventual orthography for the language.

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Building the Dena'ina Language Alaska Archive

Information Technology and Indigenous People ◽

10.4018/978-1-59904-298-5.ch028 ◽

2007 ◽

pp. 205-209 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Gary Holton ◽

Andrea Berez ◽

Sadie Williams

Keyword(s):

Language Revitalization ◽

Ease Of Use ◽

Indigenous Languages ◽

Electronic Format ◽

Cd Rom ◽

Data Preservation ◽

Endangered Language ◽

Digital Storage ◽

Indigenous Language Revitalization ◽

Language Data

As the world’s indigenous languages continue to be threatened with extinction, technology can play an important role in indigenous language revitalization, maintenance and preservation (cf. Buszard-Welcher, 2001). The emergence of electronic language archives provides an unprecedented opportunity to both preserve and provide access to often obscure and inaccessible endangered language data. Indeed, the relative ease of use of new electronic tools has made digital archive projects within reach of even modestly funded language communities. However, the ability of these data to endure in electronic format hinges crucially on attention to accepted standards of digital preservation. Lack of attention to open formats can lead to “digital carnage” (Bird & Simons, 2003). Similarly, lack of attention to proper digital storage — for example, by relying on CD-ROM for data preservation — can also lead to data loss (Bradley, 2004).

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Skill Acquisition by Children with Autism: Influence of Prompts

Adapted Physical Activity Quarterly ◽

10.1123/apaq.8.4.357 ◽

1991 ◽

Vol 8 (4) ◽

pp. 357-366 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Greg Reid ◽

Douglas Collier ◽

Michelle Cauchon

Keyword(s):

Skill Acquisition ◽

Motor Skill ◽

Children With Autism ◽

Effective Model ◽

Instructional Models ◽

Autistic Children ◽

Motor Skill Acquisition ◽

Limited Support

Visual, verbal, and physical prompting systems promote motor skill acquisition in learners who are autistic (Collier & Reid, 1987). The purpose of the present study was to contrast the effectiveness of two instructional models, one that emphasized visual prompting and one that stressed physical prompting. Both models were designed to teach autistic children a bowling skill that was subdivided into 19 task analytic steps. All four subjects received 120 trials under both instructional models in a counterbalanced fashion. It was hypothesized that physical prompting would be the most effective model, but only limited support was generated in this regard. The subjects did benefit from carefully designed instruction, however, thus replicating previous findings.

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A bi-directional task-based corpus of learners’ conversational speech

International Journal of Learner Corpus Research ◽

10.1075/ijlcr.3.2.04gar ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 3 (2) ◽

pp. 175-195 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

M. Luisa Garcia Lecumberri ◽

Martin Cooke ◽

Mirjam Wester ◽

Martin Cooke ◽

Mirjam Wester

Keyword(s):

Second Language ◽

Native Language ◽

First Language ◽

Language Group ◽

Conversational Speech ◽

Different Types ◽

Native Speech ◽

Cross Language

Abstract This paper describes a corpus of task-based conversational speech produced by English and Spanish native talkers speaking English and Spanish as both a first and a second language. For cross-language comparability, speech material was elicited using a picture-based task common to each native language group. The bi-directionality of the corpus, stemming from the use of the same speakers and the same language pairing, makes it possible to separate native language factors from the influence of speaking in a first or second language. The potential for studying first language influences and non-native speech using the corpus is illustrated by means of a series of explorations of acoustic, segmental, suprasegmental, and conversational phenomena. These analyses demonstrate the breadth of factors that are amenable to investigation in a conversational corpus and reveal different types of interactions between the first language, the second language, and non-nativeness.

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Reliability of Clinician Judgments of Severity of Phonological Impairment

American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology ◽

10.1044/1058-0360.0403.39 ◽

1995 ◽

Vol 4 (3) ◽

pp. 39-46 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Susan K. Rafaat ◽

Susan Rvachew ◽

Rebecca S. C. Russell

Keyword(s):

Conversational Speech ◽

Speech Language Pathologists ◽

Age Appropriate ◽

Citation Form ◽

Phonological Abilities ◽

Preschool Aged Children

Pairs of speech-language pathologists independently rated severity of phonological impairment for 45 preschoolers, aged 30 to 65 months. Children were rated along a continuum from normal to profound. In addition to judging overall severity of impairment, the clinicians provided separate ratings based on citation form and conversational samples. A judgment of intelligibility of conversational speech was also required. Results indicated that interclinician reliability was adequate (80% agreement) for older preschool-aged children (4-1/2 years and above) but that judgments by speechlanguage pathologists were not sufficiently reliable for children under 3-1/2 years of age 40% agreement). Children judged to have age appropriate phonological abilities were not clearly distinguishable from children judged to have a mild delay. Educating speech-language pathologists regarding the normative phonological data that are available with respect to young preschoolers, and ensuring that such data are readily accessible for assessment purposes, is required.

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