DOBES

http://www.mpi.nl/DOBES/

 

Language Endangerment

Currently there are approximately 6000 languages worldwide (many of them with a number of dialects). Following a UNESCO estimate, however, it is assumed that by the end of the 21st century, only one half - maybe even only one tenth - of these languages will continue to exist.

DOBES Programme

In 2000 the VolkswagenFoundation started the DOBES programme in order to document languages that are potentially in danger of becoming extinct within a few years time. In 2000 the pilot phase was started with seven documentation teams and one archiving team, with the intention to come up with recommendations of how language documentation can work, and how the archiving can best be done. Since then, a few new documentation teams are selected on a yearly basis in order to carry out significant documentation work within 3 years. Until now, 50 documentation projects have been funded and there will be calls for concrete documentation projects until 2011. In 2006 the first documentation teams have finished their contractual phase, but many teams still carry on with the documentation work. Yearly workshops are being held in which all past and present documentation projects meet in order to exchange experiences and results.

Language Documentation

The documentation work has two major directions: (1) It can help to maintain or revitalize the language in focus, and (2) it will help to inform future generations about the language diversity and the cultural treasures of mankind.
Therefore, the aims of the DOBES programme are to document languages in their cultural setting and present them in such a way that

• they are useful for linguistics, anthropology, history, comparative literature, and other disciplines;
• they can be understood without prior knowledge of the documented language;
• they can be used for language maintenance and revitalization by the speech community.

Each documentation is carried out in close cooperation with the speech community and reflects the particular characteristics of the respective culture. It is agreed that good documentation has to be based on many recordings as primary material. Audio recordings will present the languages as they are spoken with all their segmental and suprasegmental richness. Video recordings in addition give information about the environment in which languages are spoken and about non-verbal communication attitudes. Given these advantages there is in general a preference for combined audio and video recordings.
All material has to be stored in digital form according to open standards, and the material should be accessible from all over the world via the Internet. In addition, the archive has to take care of the long-term persistency of the digital material, which is not evident given the limited life-time of our state-of-the-art storage media.
The documentation, and therefore the archive, contain the following types of material:

• annotated audio and video recordings of diverse speech events with transcriptions, translations into one or more major languages, morphosyntactic analysis and other comments on content and linguistic phenomena
• photographs and drawings partly bundled into groups of photos documenting processes, as, how to build a house
• music recordings and videos of cultural activities and ceremonies
• a description of the language's genetic affiliation, its socio-linguistic context, its phonetic and grammatical features, and the circumstances of research, recording and documentation
• keyword-based descriptions to facilitate the organization and accessibility of documents in the archive