Athabascan Spoken Language Corpora: Ahtna (aht) and Navajo (nav)

“这项奖励是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法111-5）资助的。”这个项目的目标是记录自发的连接语音，重点是在自然环境下的对话，用两种北美土著语言。结果将是两个实质性的语料库，完成音频和视频记录，转录和翻译。这两种语言，阿赫特纳语和纳瓦霍语，代表了北美最大语系之一的两个主要分支。阿特纳语是北阿萨巴斯坎语的一种，在阿拉斯加使用。纳瓦霍语是阿萨巴斯坎南部的一种语言，在西南部的广大地区使用。这两种语言目前仍被老年人积极使用，但都濒临灭绝：没有孩子在学习阿赫特纳语，很少有人在学习纳瓦霍语。当一种语言被另一种语言（以英语为例）所取代时，传统语言首先消失的一个方面是传统的表达方式。其结果是，在演讲中组织思想的传统方式，以及在语言上的互动方式，几乎不被注意地溜走了。经过数千年进化的语法类别和表达模式可能会消失得几乎没有痕迹。阿萨巴斯坎语在帮助我们理解语言方面有着巨大的潜力。它们的词汇所界定的概念范畴，以及它们语法中编码的语义区别，与那些作为语言学理论基础的、描述得更好的语言有着显著的、根本的不同。说阿萨巴斯坎语的人和说英语的人说的东西非常不同。阿赫特纳语和纳瓦霍语的词典和基本语法描述现在都有了，但缺少的是单词和语法结构的实际使用方式。在这些语言的历史和语言学领域中，在自然环境中自发语言的记录是至关重要的一步。语料库将提供不限数量的语言记录，随着理论问题的发展和新问题的出现，这些记录将构成稳定的资源。他们将有可能观察到更大的语境，其中使用的形式和结构，说话者选择的相对频率，伴随结构的韵律模式，以及互动的风格。该项目也有主要的教育组成部分。博士生（其中一人本身就是纳瓦霍人）和社区成员将接受语言文档、存档和分析方面的前沿培训。语料库不仅可以作为学术研究的资源，还可以作为雅典娜和纳瓦霍社区关注的核心项目的基础：语言教学，语言振兴和语言欣赏。

"This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5)."The goal of this project is the documentation of spontaneous connected speech, with a focus on conversation in natural settings, in two languages indigenous to North America. The result will be two substantial corpora, complete with audio and video recordings, transcription, and translation. The two languages, Ahtna and Navajo, represent the two major branches of one of the largest language families of North America. Ahtna, a Northern Athabascan language, is spoken in Alaska. Navajo, a Southern Athabascan language, is spoken over a wide area of the Southwest. Both are still actively used by older speakers at the moment, but both are endangered: no children are learning Ahtna, and few are learning Navajo. When one language is being replaced by another(English, in this case), one of the first aspects of the heritage language to fade is traditional patterns of expression. The result is that traditional ways of organizing thought in speech, and of interacting linguistically, slip away nearly unnoticed. Grammatical categories and patterns of expression that have evolved over millennia can disappear with little trace.The Athabascan languages have tremendous potential for contributing to our understanding of language in general. The conceptual categories delimited by their vocabulary, and the semantic distinctions encoded in their grammars are strikingly and fundamentally different from those of the better-described languages that have served as the foundation for linguistic theory. Speakers of Athabascan languages say very different things when speaking than do English speakers. Dictionaries and basic grammatical descriptions now exist for both Ahtna and Navajo, but the missing piece is how the words and grammatical structures are actually used. The documentation of spontaneous speech in natural settings is a crucial step at this point in the history of these languages and in the field of linguistics. The corpora will provide open-ended records of the languages which will constitute a stable resource as theoretical concerns evolve and new questions come to the fore. They will make it possible to observe the larger contexts in which forms and constructions are used, relative frequencies of speaker choices, the prosodic patterns accompanying structures, and styles of interaction. The project also has major educational components. Doctoral students (one of whom is himself Navajo) and community members will receive cutting-edge training in language documentation, archiving, and analysis. The corpora will serve not just as aresource for academic research, but also as the basis for projects of central concern to the Athna and Navajo communities: language teaching, language revitalization, and language appreciation.