Documentation and Data Management Workshop to Address Language Endangerment in Multilingual Contexts

语言是人类最显著的特征之一。然而，一场全球危机正在迫在眉睫，据估计，在本世纪末之前，世界上空前数量的语言将消失。当没有流利的第一语言使用者时，语言就会陷入沉默，它们将带着理解人类思维能力的独特入口。此外，语言的丧失将使人们没有机会深入了解讲这些语言的地方的当地知识，以及说这些语言的人的人类历史和史前知识。由于多种语言的内部压力，世界上六七千种语言中有近三分之一受到威胁。多语种是指社区或个人使用两种或两种以上语言。语言学家对语言濒危的挑战作出了回应，试图在这些语言消失之前对它们进行丰富的多媒体记录。然而，在许多使用多种语言的地方，由于基础设施和培训不足，各种语言的文件编制不足。该研讨会将提供在这些背景下记录语言的培训。这样的培训是必要的，有三个重要原因。首先，它将填补很少或根本没有文献记载的语言的学术空白。其次，对这些语言的记录将增加对多种语言和语言濒危之间相互作用的科学理解。第三，它为科学家提供了一个机会，为创建受威胁的人类语言记录做出贡献。该项目的更广泛影响包括促进新的国际合作，在不同的语言区域培训新一代语言文献工作者，以及为研究生和初级研究人员提供国际研究经验的机会。这次研讨会的重点是濒危非洲语言，分布在不同的多语言环境中。这次讲习班的目的是通过传授技能以及对西非和美洲研究生和初级研究人员进行最先进的语文文件和数据管理技术培训来解决这一问题。研讨会将在加纳温内巴的教育大学举行，将由来自美国、欧洲和非洲的纪录片语言学国际专家组成。参与者将有机会接触到濒危语言文献研究人员的国际网络。本研讨会将语言文献的理论和技术与实际实践相结合。教师和学生将与五名讲阿尼梅尔语的人一起实际收集数据，阿尼梅尔语是加纳-多哥边境地区使用的一种高度濒危的语言，以创建该语言的第一份文件。Animere的音频和视频文件将保存在马克斯·普朗克心理语言学研究所的非洲语言和口头资源档案馆(ALORA)和佛罗里达大学的语言档案馆(TUFLA)，这是一个新的语言档案馆，以便研究人员和公众广泛获取。

Language is among the most salient human characteristics. However, a global crisis is looming, with an unprecedented number of the world's languages estimated to disappear before century's end. As languages fall silent when there are no remaining fluent first language speakers, they will take with them a unique entry into understanding the capabilities of the human mind. In addition, the loss of languages will end the opportunity to gain insight into local knowledge of the places where they were spoken, as well as the human history and prehistory of those who spoke them. Nearly one third of the world's six to seven thousand languages are threatened due to the internal pressures of multilingualism. Multilingualism is the use of two or more languages, either by a community or by an individual. Linguists have responded to the challenge of language endangerment by attempting to undertake rich multimedia documentation of such languages before they disappear. However, in many places where multilingualism is common, the languages are under-documented because of insufficient infrastructure and training. This workshop will offer training for documenting languages in these contexts. Such training is necessary for three important reasons. First, it will fill the scholarly gaps for languages with little or no documentation. Second, documentation of these languages will increase the scientific understanding of the interaction between multilingualism and language endangerment. Third, it offers scientists the opportunity to contribute to the creation of a record of threatened human languages. Broader impacts in this project include the facilitation of new international collaborations, the training of a new generation of language documenters in a diverse linguistic region, and opportunities for international research experience for graduate students and junior researchers.This workshop will convene with its focus on endangered African languages, which are distributed over diverse multilingual environments. This workshop aims to address this situation through the transfer of skills and the training of West African and American graduate students and junior researchers in state-of-the-art techniques of language documentation and data management. The workshop, which will be held at the University of Education in Winneba, Ghana, will be staffed by an international cohort of experts in documentary linguistics from the United States, Europe and Africa. Participants will have access to an international network of researchers in endangered language documentation. This workshop integrates theory and technique with actual practice in language documentation. Instructors and students will be involved in hands-on data collection with five speakers of Animere, a highly endangered language spoken in the Ghana-Togo border area, to create a first documentation of the language. Audio and video documentation of Animere will be archived at the established Archive of Language and Oral Resources of Africa (ALORA) housed at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, and at the University of Florida's Language Archive (TUFLA), a new language archive, in order to make it widely accessible to researchers and the public.