Enhancing linguistic infrastructure through the documentation of conversational expression of an endangered language

Sealaska Heritage Institute, Juneau AK

Investigators

Abstract

Worldwide, Indigenous and minority languages are experiencing rapid decline in daily use and number of speakers. Xaad Kíl, Northern Haida (hdn), an Indigenous language of coastal Southeast Alaska and northern British Columbia, Canada, has only six remaining fluent speakers. While Haida grammars and dictionaries exist, most sources do not document language use in conversational daily life, and none provide audio-visual documentation. This project documents Alaskan and Canadian elders conversing in this endangered language. Recorded conversation will demonstrate how speakers express politeness, objection or agreement; describe daily life; and relate events from the past. Conversation will be elicited using guided conversation; nonverbal stimuli such as photos and images; and task-oriented activities. These recordings, along with twenty hours of archival audio, will be translated, transcribed, annotated, and archived for public use in both Alaska and Canada. This new resource on the Northern Haida language will make invaluable cultural, historical, and linguistic data available to the community, language learners, and researchers. Documentation of this language will also provide a permanent record and linguistic infrastructure of a language in imminent danger of extinction and will broaden and enrich resources for comparative linguistic study. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.