Linguistic and Documentation Training for Long Island Algonquian to Support Native American Community Language Researchers

1990年《美洲土著语言法》将承认美洲土著语言的独特地位和重要性纳入国家政策。目前，长岛（ALI）和附近的南部新英格兰大陆的土著阿尔冈琴语的文献来源是分散的，极具挑战性，需要仍然相当稀缺的深入的语言学专业知识，使他们的真实的实际使用的学者和教师。由土著社区成员（Unkechaug）博士合作设计。该项目由一位资深的语言学家、一位资深的语言研究者、一位资深的社区语言活动家和一位经验丰富的阿尔冈琴语言学家组成，将通过研讨会使阿尔冈琴语言分析和文献的核心工具真正易于使用。阿尔冈昆语的语言结构是出了名的复杂，例如，动词既与主语又与宾语一致（与英语相比，英语只显示主语-动词一致），并且进一步依赖于该一致系统中主语和宾语的生命层次。使用较少的技术方法，并结合语言研究和语言振兴，项目活动将开发一个丰富的分析和注释的ALI材料数据库。更广泛的影响包括美洲原住民更多地参与语言科学和支持社区语言振兴。此外，这项研究产品将完全公开，支持相关阿尔冈琴团体的工作，并与当地K-12系统进行现有的合作，即使它建立了ALI社区参与者来进行这项工作。（及相关）研究作为一项长期的社区努力向前发展。该奖项中开发的数据库将为参与的Unkechaug，Shinnecock，蒙托基特和莫希干社区。它还将大大有助于一般（和阿尔冈昆语专用）语言数字文献和数据分析的基础设施，以及仍然无法使用目前形式的ALI材料的其他领域。12个月的讲习班将提供非技术化但严格的培训，内容涉及档案和语言数据管理、语音学/音位学、形态句法/形态语义学、历史重建和其他注释档案文件的相关语言技能，所有这些都将作为开发初步ALI数据库的实践工作。通过对参与者的入职、中期和离职访谈以及培训演示和内容本身的分析，提供了一套最终的报告和建议，这些报告和建议涉及研究人员培训方法的成果和总体有效性。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The 1990 Native American Languages Act enacted into national policy the recognition of the unique status and importance of Native American languages. Currently, the documentary sources for the indigenous Algonquian languages of Long Island (ALI) and the nearby Southern New England mainland are fragmented and highly challenging, demanding still quite scarce in-depth linguistic expertise to make them of real practical use to scholars and teachers. Collaboratively designed by an indigenous community-member (Unkechaug) Ph.D. researcher, established community language activists, and an experienced Algonquianist linguist, this project will use workshops to make the core tools of Algonquian language analysis and documentation genuinely accessible. Algonquian linguistic structure is notoriously complex, for example, verbs that agree with both subjects and objects (as compared to English, which only displays subject-verb agreement), and further depends on a hierarchy of animacy in subjects and objects in that agreement system. Using a less technical approach, and integrating linguistic research and language revitalization, project activities will develop a richly analyzed and annotated database of ALI materials. Broader impacts include increased participation in the language sciences by Native Americans and support for community language revitalization. Moreover, this research product will be entirely public, supporting work by related Algonquian groups and an existing collaboration with the local K-12 system, even as it sets up the ALI community participants to carry this (and related) research forward as a long-term community effort.This database developed in this award will generate long-term, sustainable linguistic research infrastructure for the participating Unkechaug, Shinnecock, Montaukett, and Mohegan communities. It will also contribute substantially to the infrastructure of general (and Algonquian-specific) linguistic digital documentation and data analysis, and other fields still unable to use current-form ALI materials. Twelve monthly workshops will offer detechnicalized but rigorous training in the relevant essentials of archival and linguistic data-management, phonetics/phonology, morphosyntax/morphosemantics, historical reconstruction, and other relevant linguistic skills for annotating archival documents, all applied as hands-on work developing the preliminary ALI database. Analysis of entry, mid-project, and exit interviews with participants, and of the training presentation and content itself, provides a final set of reports and recommendations regarding the outcomes and overall effectiveness of this researcher training methodology.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.