J. P. Harrington Database Project: Transcription, Coding, and Indices

J·P·哈林顿数据库项目自2001年以来由美国国家科学基金会资助，主要是对J·P·哈林顿在20世纪上半叶收集的关于美洲印第安语的语言和民族志笔记进行转录和编码。20世纪80年代，哈林顿的原始手写田野笔记被缩微拍摄下来，产生了504个卷轴，根据这些卷轴创建了J·P·哈林顿数据库。哈林顿笔记目前保存在史密森学会的国家人类学档案馆。这一项目的当前阶段扩大了最初转录笔记的重点，包括编写传记研究，以及访问哈林顿作品所必需的几个索引。哈林顿的数据构成了关于地球上语言最多样化的地区之一的丰富信息。虽然他特别关注语言，但这些信息不仅对语言学家，而且对更大的学术和科学界，包括生物学家、地理学家、历史学家、人类学家和考古学家来说，都是无价的。该项目还直接影响到两个独特的、往往得不到充分服务的群体：加利福尼亚州和西部的原住民，以及这些社区的学生。哈林顿采访的男性和女性往往是最后剩下的说他们语言的人之一，他记录的大多数加州语言现在要么不再说，要么只有几个年长的人说。哈林顿的笔记已被证明是土著知识的宝藏，否则就会丢失。

The J. P. Harrington Database Project, funded by NSF since 2001, consists principally in transcribing and coding the linguistic and ethnographic notes on American Indian languages collected by J. P. Harrington during the first half of the twentieth century. During the 1980s, Harrington's original handwritten field notes, currently housed in the National Anthropological Archives at the Smithsonian Institution, were microfilmed, resulting in 504 reels from which the J. P. Harrington Database has been created. The current phase of this project expands the original focus of transcribing the notes, to include the compilation of a biographical study, and several indices essential to accessing Harrington's work. Harrington's data constitute a wealth of information on one of the most linguistically diverse regions of the earth. Although his focus was specifically on language, the information is invaluable not only to linguists, but to a much larger scholarly and scientific community including biologists, geographers, historians, anthropologists, and archaeologists. This project also directly impacts two unique and often underserved groups: the native people of California and the West, and students of these communities. The men and women Harrington interviewed were often among the last remaining speakers of their languages, and most of the California languages he recorded are now either no longer spoken, or have only a few elderly speakers. Harrington's notes have proven to be a treasure of indigenous knowledge that otherwise would be lost.