Linguistic Ethnography: Gwich'in Caribou Anatomy and Cultural Ecology [ISO 639 gwi]

Vadzaih （Rangifer Tarandus）是维希人生存和精神的主要来源。几千年来，格威辛人对驯鹿的身体部位有了详细的了解：不仅有各种各样的名字和这些部位的用途，还有与之相关的传统故事、歌曲、游戏、姓氏、饮食方式和仪式的百科全书。该项目的研究目标是发现Gwich'in Athabaskan人作为一个小规模的亚北极社会，可以通过他们的语言和世界观来教导这个国家如何与土地以及与他们共享的野生动物和谐相处。为了实现这一目标，研究人员将在阿拉斯加东北部的北极村、威尼蒂和育空堡以及加拿大西北部的老克罗、Tsiigehtchic和麦克弗森堡的家乡采访活跃的猎人和老年人。这项研究的一个基本问题不仅是格威人对北美驯鹿的解剖学了解多少，而且是他们如何看待北美驯鹿，他们对北美驯鹿的看法是什么，他们的饮食和营养需求是什么，他们的生存方式是什么？语言是关键。Gwich'in是一种有四种方言的濒危语言，是Na-Dene语族的一员，田野调查计划包括所有四种方言的使用者。该计划的一个重要部分是培训年轻的演讲者和语言学习者基本的转录和翻译技能。将戈维族长者关于驯鹿的传统民族科学知识记录在他们的口述语料库和词汇中，对动物考古学、应用语言学、民俗学和文化人类学具有深远的影响。这是一种经验主义的方法，本质上是将自然科学与人文科学、骨学与语言艺术结合起来。

Vadzaih (Rangifer Tarandus) is a staple of Gwich'in subsistence and spirituality. Over the millenia, the Gwich'in have developed a detailed knowledge of caribou body parts: not only sundry names and uses for these parts but an encyclopedia of traditional stories, songs, games, family names, foodways, and ceremonies associated with them. The project's research objective is to discover what the Gwich'in Athabaskan people, as a small-scale subarctic society, can teach the nation through their language and world view about living in harmony with the land and with the wild game animals they share it with. To realize this goal the researchers will interview active hunters and elders in their home communities of Arctic Village, Venetie, and Fort Yukon in northeast Alaska, and Old Crow, Tsiigehtchic, and Fort McPherson in northwest Canada.A fundamental question for the research is not only what do the Gwich'in know about caribou anatomy, but how do they see caribou and what do they say and believe about caribou that defines themselves, their dietary and nutritional needs, and their subsistence way of life? Language is the key. Gwich'in, an endangered language with four living dialects, is a member of the Na-Dene language family, and the fieldwork plan includes speakers of all four of those dialects. An important part of the plan is to train young speakers and language learners in basic transcription and translation skills.Recording the traditional ethnoscientific knowledge Gwich'in elders have about caribou in their corpus of oral narratives and in their lexicon has farreaching implications for zooarchaeology, for applied linguistics, and for folklore and cultural anthropology. It is an empirical approach which essentially weds natural science with the humanities, osteology with verbal art.