Collaborative Research: Training the next generation of Navajo language scientists

美国国会于1990年通过的《美洲原住民语言法》承认了美洲原住民语言的独特地位和重要性。 纳瓦霍语（也称为Diné）比美国本土的任何其他语言都有更多的发言者。这是代码说话者的语言，美国海军陆战队在第二次世界大战中开发并使用了一种从未被打破的代码。尽管有很强的传统，但现在很少有纳瓦霍儿童学习说这种语言，这意味着它很有可能在几代人内消失。语法的复杂性，这有助于代码的安全性，使语言很难在学校学习。 该项目将从语言文献和语言分析方面培训下一代纳瓦霍族语言科学家，扩大美洲原住民对社会科学的参与。更广泛的影响还包括与语言教师合作，将纳瓦霍语法分析应用于语言教学，这将使K-12纳瓦霍教室的学生受益。 该项目还将提高两个参与组织的能力，即纳瓦霍技术大学和纳瓦霍语言学院，前者是一所部落学院，提供各种教育学位，最高可达迪内文化、语言和领导能力硕士学位，后者是一个致力于纳瓦霍科学研究的非营利教育组织。 暑期讲习班自1997年以来一直在进行，重点是将科学研究的原则应用于纳瓦霍语，并发现其语法基础的规则和原则。 该项目由NLA的语言学家西奥多弗纳德博士和南大的文化人类学家韦斯利托马斯博士共同指导，将每年对部落大学生、语言学学生和纳瓦霍族教师进行语言文献和分析培训。 学习必要的语言学，转录和注释技能将使参与的学生和语言教师创建一个双语纳瓦霍数字文本语料库与分析的例子材料。 参与者和其他研究人员将使用语料库来开发关于语言数据的假设，并使用语言学家采用的科学方法来测试这些假设。 语料库及其录音将可在线访问，为研究人员，教师和语言学习者提供资源。南大学生将全年从事语料库的分析和工作。 这项计划研究的一个独特优势是，由于两代纳瓦霍语使用者在语言学研究生课程中接受了如何从事语言科学研究的培训，获得了语言学及相关领域的博士学位，语言学家认为这种情况可以对语言的结构进行更深入和更丰富的调查。这些夏季研讨会提供了一个独特的场所，研究和教学纳瓦霍和Dene（阿萨巴斯卡）语言学。 专业评估员将制定和实施评估计划，以衡量NLA和NTU计划的成功。 NSF部落学院和大学计划（TCUP）正在为部落学院参与该项目提供支持。

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. The Navajo language (also called Diné) has more speakers than any other language indigenous to the United States. This is the language of the Code Talkers, United States Marines who developed and employed a code in World War II that was never broken. Despite strong traditions, very few Navajo children are now learning to speak the language which means that it is at great risk of vanishing within a few generations. The complexity of the grammar, which contributed to the code's security, makes the language difficult to learn in schools. This project will train the next generation of Navajo Nation language scientists from in language documentation and linguistic analysis, broadening participation by Native Americans in the social sciences. Broader impacts also include working with language teachers on applying the analysis of Navajo grammar to language teaching, which will benefit students in K-12 Navajo classrooms. The project will also enhance the capacity of the two participating organizations, Navajo Technical University (NTU), a tribal college that offers a variety of educational degrees up to a master's degree in Diné Culture, Language and Leadership and the Navajo Language Academy (NLA), a non-profit educational organization dedicated to the scientific study of Navajo. Summer workshops, ongoing since 1997, will focus on applying principles of scientific research to the Navajo language and discovering the rules and principles that underlie its grammar. Co-directed by linguist Dr. Theodore Fernald from the NLA and cultural anthropologist Dr. Wesley Thomas from NTU, the project will train tribal college students, linguistics students, and Navajo Nation teachers in language documentation and analysis annually. Learning the necessary linguistics, transcription and annotation skills will enable participating students and language teachers to create materials for a bilingual Navajo digital text corpus with analyzed examples. Participants and other researchers will use the corpus to develop hypotheses about language data and to test those hypotheses against the corpus using the scientific methods employed by linguists. The corpus and its recordings will be accessible on-line to provide resources for researchers, teachers, and language learners. NTU students will engage in analysis and work with the corpus throughout the year. A unique advantage of this planned research is that it is possible because of the two generations of Navajo speakers who were trained in linguistics graduate programs on how to engage in the scientific study of their language, earning doctorates in linguistics and related fields, the type of scenario that linguists argue enables deeper and richer investigations of a language's structure. These summer workshops offer a unique venue for research and teaching Navajo and Dene (Athabaskan) linguistics. A professional evaluator will develop and implement an assessment plan to gauge the success of NLA and NTU programs. The NSF Tribal Colleges and Universities Program (TCUP)is providing support for tribal college participation in this project.