Practices and Challenges in Documenting Endangered Jewish Languages

Documentary linguistics, also known as language documentation, a relatively new branch of Linguistics, advocates for the fundamental need to collect records of language use and practices in various forms from diverse genres for multiple purposes. Such purposes include language description, language development, language maintenance, and language revitalisation. Such a record of a language serves to feed not only linguistic research but also research in other disciplines, such as anthropology, history, and ethnography. Language documentation is recognized as an ultimate response to language endangerment. This paper explores language documentation with specific reference to Simpa, an under-described, minority language of Ghana. The paper reviews theories, approaches, methods, and tools of language documentation to highlight how they were employed and attuned to take care of the Simpa context. Thus, the discussion dilates on specific field methods and tools adapted for obtaining a balanced set of data from three complementary event types, viz., natural communicative events, staged communicative events, and elicitations, to build a language documentation corpus. Data processing, data annotation, and data management practices applied in building the corpus, as well as dissemination of the research outcomes are also addressed. Furthermore, fieldwork ethics used in the study are discussed. Finally, for consideration in future research, the paper reflects on some challenges that were encountered in documenting Simpa.
 

Primary records of Australian Indigenous languages can provide both a kind of information and an immediacy of connection with the speakers that are not so apparent in derived analytical works. Locating primary records is often a difficult task, but digitizing can make records more accessible. Language documentation emphasises the creation of primary records together with language descriptions, and so there should be more detailed records based on linguistic research in the past generation, but that is not necessarily the case. This points to the need for greater uptake of new methods in linguistic fieldwork that will result in well-structured and well-described primary documentation of Australian languages.

In the digital era, documenting low-resource languages in Southern China, especially minority and endangered languages in Southwest China, is of great significance. These languages, embodying distinctive cultural heritages and cognitive systems, are under threat from language shift and modernization. Rooted in documentary linguistics—a newly born and still growing field dedicated to comprehensively documenting languages through digital media technologies for dynamic recording, long-term preservation, and easy accessible dissemination—for about two decades, we have conducted a couple of projects in documenting several languages or dialects of the Tai-Kadai family, utilizing interdisciplinary fieldwork to preserve linguistic data and cultural heritages embedded in these languages, thus obtaining some achievements in language preservation and revitalization, enriching global linguistic diversity and cultural heritage. This comprehensive interdisciplinary approach, aligned with documentary linguistics’ methodologies of participatory recording and cross-disciplinary data integration, not only comprehensively documents language data but also integrates diverse cultural knowledge, bridging the gap between linguistics and other disciplines. It provides a new model for low-resource language documentation, highlighting the value of preserving linguistic and cultural diversity, and offers essential data for language preservation and research, cultural inheritance, and community development.

Within the humanities, linguistics can rightly be seen as one of the more data-heavy fields. Especially when undertaking a comprehensive description of a language, all sorts of linguistic data and metadata are needed for successful analysis. What used to be a more-or-less well organized compilation of handwritten field work notes is nowadays often a more-or-less well organized collection of digital notes. Digital literacy, as advocated by the digital humanities movement, is something linguistics could benefit from immensely. However, much descriptive linguistic work conducted with digital tools does not take full advantage of their possibilities. There are ways of converting between the formats used by some of these tools, but the potential interoperational richness stemming from language structure or rather, the analysis thereof, is often not explored. The CLLD (cross-linguistic linked data) project (Forkel, Bank, et al. 2019) is focused on interoperable data and provides an easily extendable web framework for providing access to these data. The CLDF (cross-linguistic data formats) project (Forkel, J.-M. List, et al. 2017), which grew out of CLLD, aims to create a database-independent framework for storing and manipulating linguistic data, based on simple CSV (comma-separated values) files. The advantages of CLDF are the software-independent data format and its encouragement of consistency and completeness. The simplicity and ease of editing can be enormously beneficial for collaborations with native speakers, and consistency and completeness of data leads to more satisfying analyses. I present an approach that combines more traditional linguis- tic software solutions and the philosophy championed by these projects. It is based on two staple software solutions of many field linguists, ELAN (The Language Archive 2018) and FLEx (Summer Institute of Linguistics 2019), and the CLLD framework. Language data (in the form of texts) is first annotated in ELAN, then exported to FLEx (see Gaved & Salffner 2014), where morphosyntactic annotation is conducted. From the resulting FLEx export, CLDF files containing the lexicon and interlinear examples are created. These files in turn are then used to create a rich and interactive online grammar / dictionary / text collection built with the CLLD framework.1 The result is accessible for both laypeople and linguists, providing both a thorough description of the language, as well as rich illustrations of language in use, all with an accessible and interactive interface. Every example sentence is linked to an audio file and one or multiple speakers. Also, morphemes in the object line of sentences are links to dictionary entries (Figure 1a). Dictionary entries for a morpheme list all sentences which exemplify it; again with included audio, and links to other appearing morphemes (Figure 1c). Meanings can be linked to the Concepticon (J. M. List et al. 2019). In the grammatical description part, illustrative examples can be inserted directly from the database. Links to individual entries, sources, and other parts of the grammatical description are also possible (Figure 1b). Planned features include the inclusion of dialectal and other sociolinguistic variation based on information about the included speakers.

The paper is an attempt at presenting stereotypes describing the Danish language as one that is unpleasant to listen to and hard to learn as well as analyzing linguistic facts and research findings that may prove the mentioned stereotypes right or wrong. The first part of the paper is therefore based on research within travel literature, while the second part focuses on linguistic data and research within the areas of Polish and Danish grammar (phonetics and phonology in particular) and language acquisition.

As a linguist investigating the Warlpiri language of central Australia since 1975 and the Waanyi language of the Gulf of Carpentaria region since 2000, my research has always had dual goals. One is to gain a better understanding of the nature of human language generally through detailed documentation and deep analysis of particular human languages, such as Warlpiri and Waanyi, and comparison with other languages; the other goal has been to produce materials of direct relevance and utility to the communities of these language speakers. This paper addresses the second goal. Firstly I briefly describe ways in which linguistic research findings have been 'converted' into pedagogic materials to support thebilingual education programs in the Warlpiri community schools (Lajamanu, Nyirrpi, Willowra and Yuendumu) from the mid 1970s to the present, a period which has seen dramatic technical innovations that we have been able to exploit to create a wide range of products accessible to the public which have their genesis in serious linguistic research. Secondly I discuss some aspects of the interdisciplinary (linguistics and anthropology)“Warlpiri Songlines” project (2005-9) for which over 100 hours of traditional Warlpiri songs were recorded and documented; older analogue recordings were digitised and ceremonial performances were video recorded. Thirdly, I touch upon the ongoing development of a Waanyi dictionary and language learning materials in collaboration with Waanyi people living at Doomadgee in north west Queensland who want to extend knowledge of their ancestral language within their community, since this language is no longer used as a primary language of communication. Finally, I cite some of the many recent innovative examples of ways in which linguists and anthropologists are drawing on contemporary technology to transmit their research findings to both the general public and to the communities in which their research is carried out.

In the year 2018, marking the anniversary of their original releases, the main of the article is to discuss the question concerning the applicability of The Polish Peasant in Europe and America (1918) by William Isaac Thomas and Florian Znaniecki and Młode pokolenie chłopów [The Young Generation of Peasants] (1938) by Józef Chałasiński, two crucial works in rural and general sociology to other areas of humanistic disciplines, with examples drawn from linguistic research. Here, we both characterise and justify the historical and contemporary relationships between sociology and linguistics both on a general level and in their rural varieties. Cooperation between representatives of the given disciplines is possible on the ground of structuralism and, in fact, is being implemented in many joint research projects. Rural sociology has established itself as a subdiscipline of sociology and has developed its specific thematic and methodological autonomy within the major scope of the field. The existence of ‘rural’ linguistics is not so obvious, but there are certain phenomena and processes observed in rural conditions which justify the use of such a term. However, it is not the officially accepted name of the subdiscipline which, in the present article, is defined as ‘linguistic (and sociolinguistic) research in rural area’ with constant references to dialectology. Hence, methods such as the personal documents method and the biographical method are already present in linguistics and sociolinguistics, although direct references to sociological works (both in general and specifically to both Thomas and Znaniecki’s and Chałasiński’s texts in detail) are rare. Still, some popular linguistic approaches – e.g. language biographies or the use of personal documents as a source of linguistic data – are very close to the ideas postulated by the precursors of rural sociology. There are also authors who have so far used Thomas and Znaniecki’s as well as Chałasiński’s theoretical achievements, while they refer consciously and directly to The Polish Peasant in Europe and America and The Young Generation of Peasants.

Language documentation is a complex undertaking requiring varied technical and interpersonal skills, in addition to a strong foundation in linguistics. A full training program would include: immersion in the literature on language endangerment and language documentation; project planning; grant writing; preparation for the practical and psychological challenges of fieldwork; extensive discussion of a wide range of ethical issues; an understanding of factors that impact community decisions on orthographies; development of technical skills (e.g., audio-video recording, mastery of software, data management, archiving); phonetic and discourse transcription; the analysis, glossing, and translation of texts; grammar writing; and lexicography. There are many resources and models for providing such training, which can be embedded into the university curriculum (including field methods), offered at workshops or institutes, or taught in situ in apprenticeship or service-learning models.

This paper discusses Language Maintenance and Revitalisation as Linguistic Justice with two community-initiated and -led Language Documentation Projects on the Indigenous Sign Language and Creole language used in the Miriwoong community in Kununurra, Western Australia. The paper explores how the ‘Two-Way’ collaboration is important in shaping the process and outcomes of Language Documentation (here Maintenance and Revitalisation). We argue that ‘Ground-up’ and community-led research is vital to the successful implementation of Language Maintenance and Revitalisation in which Indigenous Methodologies (Yarning, Storytelling, among others) together with methods of Western Sciences are applied. Depending on the needs of the community Language Documentation (as Language Maintenance, Revitalisation or Reclamation) is a way to achieve Linguistic Justice.

In the paper we define, elaborate and illustrate what language documentation is, firstly by focusing on the global context where the large number of vanishing languages warrants such an approach in applied linguistics, and then by narrowing our scope to the local context of the Republic of Serbia, which itself has a certain number of endangered and vulnerable languages and language varieties. Indicating the discrepancy between official records found in world catalogues and databases (UNESCO’s Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger, Ethnologue, and The Catalogue of Endangered Languages (ELCat)) and the situation in the field as described by researchers familiar with the local context, we investigate the experiences of a team of researchers currently working on documenting Aromanian, Banat Bulgarian, Vojvodina Rusyn (Ruthenian), Judezmo (Ladino), Romani (Gurbet and Arli varieties), Megleno-Romanian and Romanian (Bayash and Vlach varieties) as endangered and vulnerable languages and language varieties in Serbia. Using interviews as a method for collecting data, conveying the researchers’ experiences in the field and their ways of dealing with various issues that come up in the process of language documentation, we have singled out two broad fields of topics. The first one tackles methodological challenges encountered prior and during field work, whereas the second focuses on ethical issues that necessarily must be resolved due to the participation of human subjects. In terms of the first group of topics, we have focused on research design (considerations involved in the project preparation), sampling (usually relying on researchers’ previous experiences more than on official records), personal involvement (often inevitable, but researchers do present strategies that help them maintain objectivity), and establishing first contact and recruiting informants (which also relies on previous work in the community). As for the second group of topics, that concerns ethical issue, the researchers have discussed the ways of getting informants’ consent for research and how they explain the importance of language documentation for that particular community and its members. Additionally, it addresses the issue of compensation that sometimes occurs, where informants expect either material or other kind of reward for helping out the research team. The paper also discusses how researchers deal with various sensitive topics that may range from personal issues to political opinions, and finally, the ethical responsibility that the researchers have towards the community they are studying in terms of giving something back and providing a sustainable relationship towards the language in question. We conclude by positioning the process of language documentation in the wider field of social studies, indicating its importance not only for sociolinguistics but also for the sociology of language, sociology of ethnicity and other related disciplines.

Evolution and changes of all modern languages is a well-known fact. However, recently it is reaching dynamics never seen before, which results in loss of the vast amount of information encoded in every language. In order to preserve such rich heritage, and to carry out linguistic research, properly annotated recordings of world languages are necessary. Since creating those annotations is a very laborious task, reaching times 100 longer than the length of the annotated media, innovative video processing algorithms are needed, in order to improve the efficiency and quality of annotation process. This is the scope of the AVATecH project presented in this article.

General-purpose database management systems, whose structure is built in, are not an appropriate solution to situations where problems of translation or areas of research cannot be bounded in advance, for example, when lexicography and linguistic research are closely related. Consequently, an original system has been developed, and is being applied to linguistic and lexicographical data on the Somali language.

Linguistic data management is expounded in this article. Documenting a language requires the production of records that will persist and be accessible into the future. If we look at the number of language descriptions for which there is no corresponding accessible primary data, it would seem that creating persistent, well-structured, and citable language records has proven to be a considerable barrier to linguists in the past. This chapter seeks to provide such advice by focusing on the nuts and bolts of the creation and management of sustainable data in the course of linguistic field research, including pre-fieldwork planning and the follow-up archiving, annotation, and analysis of field-collected materials. The approach to data management presented here assumes that it is the professional responsibility of linguists to create long-lasting, archivable primary data and to situate any subsequent analyses in that data. The article further advocates the use of appropriate technologies to record, manage and annotate linguistic data, in order to create good records of the languages that are studied and also provide data upon which we make generalizations. This article aims to help find the balance between the desire to record and annotate the data to the highest possible standards, and the reality of the time constraints we all work under.

This study examines associations between patient demographics, clinical status, and linguistic features of text messages with engagement in a message-based intervention for serious mental illness. Data from a randomized controlled trial of a message-based mental health intervention were analyzed. Engagement was operationalized as total texts sent per day and total number of disengaged days. Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count identified expressions of affect, social processes, thinking styles, health, and time orientation. Generalized estimating equations assessed associations between demographic, clinical, and Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count variables with engagement across three different time intervals. Among 39 participants, most were male (n = 23, 59%), with diagnoses of schizophrenia (n = 16, 41%), schizoaffective disorder (n = 9, 23%), bipolar disorder (n = 9, 23%), and major depressive disorder (n = 5, 13%). Participants sent approximately two messages per day, with 48% of days disengaged. Race, education, and diagnosis were associated with engagement. Black participants and those with at least some college education sent more texts while individuals with schizophrenia had more disengaged days. Messages containing language about anxiety, friendship, cognitive processes, and common verbs were associated with engagement. Significant relationships between message content and future engagement were observed, particularly in the first 2 weeks, as well as in messages sent the day and week before a disengaged day. Demographic, clinical, and linguistic features are related to engagement in message-based interventions for serious mental illness. Identifying these characteristics can help tailor interventions, enhancing engagement, and reducing dropout rates in digital mental health interventions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Linguistic hybridization has always been present in society; it undoubtedly plays a role in the development of most natural languages and varieties. This chapter investigates hybrids related to Philippine English (PhE) using a bottom-up approach. It surveys related works and analyzes linguistic data with the goal of broadening the traditional PhE field by including studies of language contact, language documentation, and diaspora sociohistory to PhE research. It discusses studies of PhE beyond the homogenizing paradigm, fulfilling the goal of the field of world Englishes, that is, to study the varied uses of English in various contexts around the world. Tagalog-Filipino-English ‘Taglish’ code-switching primarily refers to code-switching among Tagalog, Filipino, and English in the clausal and phrasal level.