Continuing Tlingit Language Documentation

特林吉特语是阿拉斯加东南部、不列颠哥伦比亚省内陆和育空地区使用的一种濒临灭绝的语言。与特林吉特语最近的亲戚是阿萨巴斯坎语家族的语言和几乎灭绝的埃亚克语。在阿拉斯加，大约有150人能说一口流利的英语，几乎所有人都是中老年人。在这一群体中，只有最年长的一代拥有全面的流利程度，能够区分语言中的细微差别。这门语言的复杂性加剧了它的濒危。Tlingit动词有11个前缀和后缀位置。将这些词与动词词干结合在一起，就会产生缩略词，而缩略词往往会彻底改变其原始形式。总的来说，特林吉特语动词的变位非常复杂，与罗曼语和日耳曼语中常见的模式有很大不同，因此特林吉特语作为第二语言很难学习。该项目包括三个密切相关的活动，这些活动促进了特林吉特语的文件编制，并为语言教师和学习者增加了可用的资源。这些活动包括：制定一套特林吉特语参考语法，尽可能以非技术的方式向语言学习者解释语法；完成了教学教材《中级英语》和动词书《主要部分》，其中提供了大约200个动词的动词范式；还有一大批大约有40年历史的录音带的数字化，这些录音带包含了特林吉特语的叙事、演讲和民族志信息——这是该语言的丰富原始数据。项目调查人员将通过咨询流利的说话者来进行研究，以告知参考语法、教科书和动词书。从演讲者那里收集的数据将被记录并组织成对学习者友好的语法解释。录音带将在专业工作室进行数字化处理，然后保存在阿拉斯加遗产研究所的档案中。该项目还将提供对Tlingit语法复杂结构的深入了解，并将增加语言学家和认知科学家可用的语言数据语料库。此外，项目活动将为致力于振兴该语言的越来越多的语言学习者和教师提供急需的特林吉特语言资源。

Tlingit is a deeply endangered language spoken in Southeast Alaska and in the interior of British Columbia and the Yukon Territory. The closest relatives to Tlingit are languages of the Athabaskan family and the nearly extinct language Eyak. Nearly all of the estimated 150 remaining fluent speakers in Alaska are middle-aged or elderly people. Among this group, only the oldest generation has a full range of fluency and is capable of distinguishing the finer subtleties and nuances held in the language. Adding to the endangerment of the language is its level of complexity. The Tlingit verb has 11 prefix and suffix positions. Combining these with the verb stem results in contractions which often drastically change their original form. Overall, the conjugation of Tlingit verbs is very complex, differing greatly from the familiar patterns found in the Romance and Germanic languages, thus making Tlingit quite difficult to learn as a second language. This project consists of three closely related activities which advance the documentation of the Tlingit language and add to the available resources for language teachers and learners alike. The activities include: the development of a reference grammar of Tlingit which will serve to explain the grammar to language learners in as non-technical a way as possible; the completion of Intermediate Tlingit, a pedagogical textbook and Principal Parts, a verb book which will provide verb paradigms for roughly 200 verbs; and the digitization of a large collection of approximately 40-year-old audio cassette tapes containing Tlingit narrative, oratory and ethnographic information - a wealth of primary data in the language. The project investigators will conduct research through consultation with fluent speakers to inform the reference grammar, text book, and verb book. Data gathered from speakers will be recorded and organized into learner-friendly grammatical explanations. The audio cassette tapes will be digitized in a professional studio and will then be archived in the Sealaska Heritage Institute archives.This project will also provide insight into the complex structure of Tlingit grammar and will add to the corpus of linguistic data available to linguists as well as cognitive scientists. In addition, the project activities will provide much needed Tlingit language resources to a growing body of language learners and teachers committed to the revitalization of the language.