RAPID - Definitive Dictionary for All Itelmen: Urgent managing of the lexical data archives of Aleksandr Pavlovich Volodin

University Of Alaska Fairbanks Campus, Fairbanks AK

Investigators

Abstract

This research project will digitally catalog the hand written data notes of aging Russian linguist Aleksandr P. Volodin on the Itelmen language in order to preserve this extensive data on this very endangered language, fewer than 20 fluent speakers, most over 70 years of age. Volodin is the foremost Russian scholar of the Itelmen language, his archive holds over 12,000 slips (dictionary entries) from his Itelmen fieldwork. Dr. Volodin is of advanced age and unfortunately is not computer literate; as a result his field data is itself endangered as no one can fully interpret his personal notes without the benefit of his knowledge. The project will digitize unique data on a highly endangered language for access by the linguistics community interested in comparative syntax and language shift. In addition, it will add content to a FLEx database which will facilitate production of a print dictionary, allow online access for language scholars and allow integration with audio-visual materials gathered by others studying Itelmen.