Handbook

This course will introduce you to the study of endangered, minority and less-described languages and train you in recording and analysing these languages for community projects and linguistic research. It will take you step-by-step through the tools and methods to record, transcribe, annotate and analyse spoken languages. You will be given hands on experience at all stages of this process – testing different recording methods, learning how to use transcription software, exploring new digital methods of creating language resources, and planning a language documentation project. You will also be introduced to case studies of language documentation and language revitalisation projects around the globe to better understand the ethics involved in undertaking this kind of work. The skills taught in this course have applications in a wide range of linguistic fields and approaches, such as language documentation, language revitalisation, language policy and planning, dictionary-making, and computational linguistics.