Continuing Tlingit Language Documentation

特林吉特是阿拉斯加东南部、不列颠哥伦比亚省内陆和育空地区使用的一种极度濒危的语言。与特林吉特最接近的近亲是阿萨巴斯坎语系的语言和几乎灭绝的埃亚克语。据估计，阿拉斯加剩下的150名流利的演讲者几乎都是中年人或老年人。在这一群体中，只有年龄最大的一代拥有全面的流利程度，并能够区分语言中更细微的微妙和细微差别。增加这门语言的危险的是它的复杂程度。特林吉特动词有11个前缀和后缀位置。将它们与动词词干组合在一起，就会产生缩写，而缩写往往会极大地改变它们的原始形式。总体而言，特林吉特动词的变化非常复杂，与罗曼语和日耳曼语中常见的模式有很大不同，因此作为第二语言学习特林吉特非常困难。该项目由三项密切相关的活动组成，这三项活动促进了特林吉特语言的记录，并增加了语言教师和学习者的现有资源。活动包括：编写特林吉特语法参考手册，以尽可能非技术性的方式向语言学习者解释语法；完成中级特林吉特教学教科书和主要部分，一本动词手册，将提供约200个动词的动词范例；以及对大量已有40年历史的包含特林吉特叙事、演讲和人种学信息的录音带进行数字化--这是该语言的大量基本数据。项目调查人员将通过咨询流利的演讲者进行研究，以告知参考语法、课本和动词书。从演讲者那里收集的数据将被记录下来，并组织成便于学习者学习的语法解释。录音带将在专业录音棚中数字化，然后将保存在Sealaska遗产研究所的档案中。该项目还将深入了解特林吉特语法的复杂结构，并将增加语言学家和认知科学家可用的语言数据语料库。此外，项目活动将向越来越多致力于振兴语言的语言学习者和教师提供急需的特林吉特语言资源。

Tlingit is a deeply endangered language spoken in Southeast Alaska and in the interior of British Columbia and the Yukon Territory. The closest relatives to Tlingit are languages of the Athabaskan family and the nearly extinct language Eyak. Nearly all of the estimated 150 remaining fluent speakers in Alaska are middle-aged or elderly people. Among this group, only the oldest generation has a full range of fluency and is capable of distinguishing the finer subtleties and nuances held in the language. Adding to the endangerment of the language is its level of complexity. The Tlingit verb has 11 prefix and suffix positions. Combining these with the verb stem results in contractions which often drastically change their original form. Overall, the conjugation of Tlingit verbs is very complex, differing greatly from the familiar patterns found in the Romance and Germanic languages, thus making Tlingit quite difficult to learn as a second language. This project consists of three closely related activities which advance the documentation of the Tlingit language and add to the available resources for language teachers and learners alike. The activities include: the development of a reference grammar of Tlingit which will serve to explain the grammar to language learners in as non-technical a way as possible; the completion of Intermediate Tlingit, a pedagogical textbook and Principal Parts, a verb book which will provide verb paradigms for roughly 200 verbs; and the digitization of a large collection of approximately 40-year-old audio cassette tapes containing Tlingit narrative, oratory and ethnographic information - a wealth of primary data in the language. The project investigators will conduct research through consultation with fluent speakers to inform the reference grammar, text book, and verb book. Data gathered from speakers will be recorded and organized into learner-friendly grammatical explanations. The audio cassette tapes will be digitized in a professional studio and will then be archived in the Sealaska Heritage Institute archives.This project will also provide insight into the complex structure of Tlingit grammar and will add to the corpus of linguistic data available to linguists as well as cognitive scientists. In addition, the project activities will provide much needed Tlingit language resources to a growing body of language learners and teachers committed to the revitalization of the language.