Transcript The Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America

The Archive of the Indigenous
Languages of Latin America
Goals and Visions
The AILLA Community



Scholars: linguists, anthropologists,
educators, botanists…
Speakers of indigenous languages In Latin
America
General public, especially indigenous
people living abroad.
Scholars: access and interests




Access: good, although mostly via
telephone connections in Latin America.
Safe preservation of data collections.
Venue for publication of data and early
research results.
Research: cross-linguistic/cultural
analyses, typology, historical analyses…
Speakers: access and interests




Access: ranges from university accounts to
Internet cafes in market cities. Many will have
little or no access.
Language documentation: dictionaries,
grammars, text collections, ethnographies.
Language revitalization: teaching materials for
all ages.
Literature and broadcast media; Internet
publication.
Heritage speakers


Access: ranges from excellent to
intermittent.
Typically seeking language and culture
materials for their children
AILLA’s Future Collection
Grammars
Dictionaries
Texts: audio/video,
transcriptions,
translations
Teaching Materials
Literature
Art: photos, drawings…
Key Tasks of an Archive





Acquisition
Data management
Long-term preservation
Dissemination
Exploitation of archive resources
Acquisition triage






Data from severely endangered
languages.
Data stored on obsolete media.
Breadth of coverage.
Support goals of speakers.
Depth of coverage.
Quality of supporting materials.
Data management




Diverse resources
Dynamic resources
Standards and interoperability
Data types and formats
Diverse Resources

An eclectic collection




Audio, video, text, graphic, photo
From field notes to fully annotated films to
virtual art galleries to collections of poems…
Like a library: preserved forever and available
to the public.
Unlike a library: creators = publishers,
producers and consumers overlap.
Dynamic Resources





A volatile collection.
Better to archive unanalyzed data than
risk accidental loss.
Archive as a medium for international
collaboration.
Depositors can update resources.
Resources may have multiple versions.
Standards and interoperability




We must have interoperable metadata and file
formats to serve our users.
AILLA has adopted the IMDI standard for
metadata, with local customizations.
IMDI & OLAC will maintain mappings so AILLA
will be compliant with the global community.
What we still need: standards for packaging
multi-media language resources - bundles.
Data types and formats



Audio: .wav and .mp3, with 1-minute mp3
samples of long works (> 10 mins)
Text: .pdf and the original format.
Future:




Some kind of standard markup for texts?
Some kind of neutral yet live text format?
2-minute chunks of .wav files?
Video, photo, graphic, etc, etc, etc…
Preservation


Long-term preservation is a requirement:
it’s our primary mission!
As long as there is a library at the
University of Texas at Austin, AILLA’s
resources will be preserved.
Dissemination





Also a primary requirement of the archive: wide
dissemination of resources.
Internet best serves this requirement.
Everything must be available online: metadata,
metadata editors, upload/download resources,
information…
Issue: ensuring backwards compatibility, efficient
functioning on old browsers, slow computers,
and telephone connections.
Everything must also be available offline, on
CDs sent by mail.
Accessibility vs. protection


Vast majority of AILLA’s collection will be public
access, no restrictions.
Graded access system controls access to
sensitive materials:




Level 2: automatic controls, e.g. passwords
Level 3: depositor control, by permission only.
Level 4: speaker control, by permission only.
HOWEVER: Not publishing data is also a
potential infringement of speakers’ right to
access their own languages’ resources!
Usability

AILLA’s users include people who





Speak Spanish as a second language, and do not
speak English;
Have little or no prior computer experience;
May have very little formal education;
Probably do not speak academese.
Mission: Interfaces must use clear, ordinary
language, not jargon, and everything must be
offered in Spanish as well as English.
Exploitation of resources




Viewers, annotation tools, analysis tools…
Anything that helps users achieve their
goals using archive resources.
Short term plan: scour the net for free
software and provide links, guides,
reviews, etc. from AILLA’s web site.
Long term plan: seek agreements to
localize all that fine software to Spanish.
Conclusion

The long range vision:




An nice fat endowment, to support and develop the
archive, and offer grants to speakers working on their
languages.
Every last scrap of information ever created about the
indigenous languages of Latin America, with all the
necessary tools.
An academic culture that requires archiving of data.
A reputation among indigenous people as a fullservice support site for their goals and visions for
their languages.