An audio-visual archive and searchable corpus of Kaike, an endangered Tibeto-Burman language of Dolpa, Nepal

The Endangered Language Documentation Programme (ELDP) provides grants worldwide to for the linguistic documentation of endangered language and knowledge. Grantees create multimedia collection of endangered languages. These collections are preserved and made freely available through the Endangered Languages Archive (ELAR) housed at the library of SOAS University of London.

Kaike (ISO 639-3 kzq, 82E; 28N, ca. 800-1000 speakers) is an endangered Tibeto-Burman language spoken in Dolpa, Nepal. All speakers of Kaike are fluent in Nepali and Poinke Tibetan as well and Kaike is not used in writing, religious contexts, songs or education. This project will provide high-quality audio-visual materials to preserve the language for the local and linguistic community. These materials will furthermore be transcribed and translated and donated to the local community as a collection of traditional stories and practices they could use as teaching material. Finally, the texts will be morpho-syntactically annotated to provide a searchable corpus for anyone interested in the rich typology of the languages of the Himalaya or Kaike's interesting linguistic features. Primary investigator: Marieke Meelen

Project Details


Location: Nepal, Southern Asia, Asia Organiser(s): Endangered Languages Documentation Programme Project partner(s): SOAS, University of London Funder(s): Arcadia Funding received: £9,526.00 Commencement Date: 01/2013
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