Kowasa:ton il:halas -- Let Us Hear Koasati: A Filmic Documentation Project of Koasati

Mcneese State University

Investigators

Abstract

This project will create a web-based electronic archive, audio-dictionary and searchable database of word lists, personal narratives, and naturally-occurring conversation for the severely endangered Koasati language. Koasati (iso639 code CKU) is a Muskogean language with a rapidly declining population of fluent speakers. Recent tribal surveys have found fewer than 170 fluent speakers, an alarming degree of language shift, and virtually no intergenerational transmission of the language. For those who want to overcome this shift, new materials are needed. Despite intermittent linguistic attention over the past century, no record of naturally-occurring Koasati speaker interactions, communication events, or elicited personal narratives exists. The Tribe strongly believes that there is a timely and urgent need to capture the naturally occurring speech of the remaining fluent Koasati speakers in actual use before this language fades away. This filmic language documentation project will address this need by conducting fieldwork to systematically document naturally-occurring Koasati speech in digital video format; training tribal members in current "best practice" documentation methods; creating a searchable electronic database that is navigable in Koasati and English; and developing a web-based electronic archive for Koasati. The Co-PIs are a husband-wife team comprised of the director of the tribe's language program who is himself a tribal member and native speaker of Koasati, and a professor of anthropology who has worked in the Koasati community documenting traditional history, culture and language for the past sixteen years. Additional project personnel include two renowned Creek language scholars and eight fluent speakers who will work on the project as consultants, transcribers, and Advisory Board members. In addition to increasing the body of linguistic data available for the highly endangered Koasati language, this project will provide a model for other communities initiating similar documentation projects, particularly by training tribal members in data collection methods and uses of electronically archived linguistic materials. The broader impact of this project will also be felt as the multimedia database created for the Koasati language provides new data for comparison with other Muskogean languages, and at the discretion of the Tribal Council, is made available for efforts to build a linguistic ontology.