Analyzing Fifty Years of Conversations in Kawaiisu, an endangered language of California

就像考古学家有分析实物的方法来更好地了解人类历史和文化一样，语言学家有分析录音和手稿的方法来更好地了解不同语言之间的关系，或者一种语言是如何随着时间的推移而变化的。随着人们不再使用语言，语言，尤其是不成文的语言，变得比实体场所更加脆弱，所有保存在其中的知识可能很容易丢失。世界各地濒临灭绝的语言都是如此，包括卡瓦伊苏语，这是加利福尼亚州克恩县的一种乌托阿兹特克语，那里只剩下两名年长的美洲原住民。美国国会于1990年通过了《美洲原住民语言法案》，将承认美洲原住民语言的独特地位和重要性制定为政策。该项目将涉及一名语言学家、卡哇伊苏第二语言使用者和年长使用者，他们将转录、翻译和分析50年来卡哇伊苏语言的录音。更广泛的影响包括扩大参与，因为美国原住民公民科学家研究他们的传统语言，以及学术语言学家和美国原住民社区之间的模范伙伴关系的实施。分析后的Kawaiisu材料将对公众开放，并将为语言学家和其他依赖语言相关材料（即人类学、历史、地理）进行研究的学科产生学术兴趣的数据。幸运的是，科技已经留下了卡哇伊苏的声音记录。最早的录音是1958年由谢尔登·克莱因（Sheldon Klein）录制的，清晰地呈现了60年前的节奏、声音和语言模式，当时Kawaiisu更常用。后来，克莱因在20世纪80年代录制的录音是连接这些古老的说话方式和后来流利对话的桥梁，这些对话是由卡瓦伊苏语言文化中心在2011年至2015年期间在文化重要地点录制的。只有不到10%的书被翻译了出来。卡瓦伊苏语是乌托-阿兹特克语系，在语言学的许多领域，包括语言分类、历史重建、类型学和理论语言学中都发挥了重要作用。尽管如此重要，关于这个家族仍然有很多问题，包括卡哇伊苏及其在努米克家族分支中的地位。这个项目将增加对卡哇伊苏及其近亲的科学认识。研究人员将通过这个新注释的文档来调查语言的变化。对话数据跨越了历史上的一个关键时期，当时土著社区以及整个加利福尼亚和美国都发生了重大变化。Kawaiisu团队成员的参与确保了他们在语言和文化复兴项目中调动数据时所获得的知识将与社区保持联系。录音和转录将被保存在加州大学伯克利分校的加州语言档案馆，供其他研究人员和公众查阅。

Just as archeologists have methods to analyze material objects to better understand human history and culture, linguists have methods to analyze recordings and manuscripts to better understand the relationship between different languages or how a single language has changed throughout time. As populations stop speaking them, languages, especially unwritten ones, become even more fragile than physical sites and all knowledge held within may easily be lost. This is true of endangered languages all over the world including Kawaiisu, a Uto-Aztecan language of Kern County, California, where just two Native American elder speakers remain. The Native American Languages Act, passed by the U.S. Congress in 1990, enacted into policy the recognition of the unique status and importance of Native American languages. This project will involve a linguist, Kawaiisu second language speakers, and the elder speakers to transcribe, translate, and analyze recordings covering fifty years of Kawaiisu speech. The broader impacts of this include broadening participation as Native American citizen scientists research their heritage language, as well as the implementation of an exemplary partnership between academic linguists and Native American communities. The resulting analyzed Kawaiisu materials will be publicly accessible and will generate data of scholarly interest to linguists and to other disciplines that depend on language-related material (i.e., anthropology, history, geography) in their research.Fortunately, technology has left a record of the sounds of Kawaiisu. The oldest audio recordings, made in 1958 by Sheldon Klein, clearly present the cadence, sounds, and linguistic patterns of 60 years ago, when Kawaiisu was in more regular use. Later Klein recordings from the 1980s are the bridge between these older ways of speaking and later usage in fluent conversations video-recorded at culturally significant sites by the Kawaiisu Language and Cultural Center between 2011 and 2015. Less than 10 percent have been translated. Kawaiisu is Uto-Aztecan language family, which has played an important role in many areas of linguistics, including linguistic classification, historical reconstruction, typology and theoretical linguistics. Despite this importance, there are still many questions about the family, including Kawaiisu and its place in the Numic branch of the family. This project will augment scientific knowledge of Kawaiisu and its relatives.Researchers will investigate language change via this newly annotated documentation. The conversational data spans a critical period in history when major shifts were occurring within indigenous communities, as well as throughout California and the United States. The involvement of Kawaiisu team members ensures that the knowledge gained will remain with the community as they mobilize data in their linguistic and cultural revitalization programs. Recordings and transcriptions will be archived at the California Language Archive at the University of California, Berkeley, where they will be accessible to other researchers and the general public.