Documentation of Betta Kurumba
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.
Betta Kurumba is an endangered Dravidian language spoken in the Nilgiri-Wynaad region of southern India. The Betta Kurumbas (pop. 2-6,000) lived for centuries in relative isolation as a forest-gatherer group. Since the 19th century, their homeland has been steadily transformed by the establishment of tea and coffee plantations, drawing in large numbers of immigrants from other Indian regions, who are speakers of politically more dominant languages. This project is part of an ongoing Betta Kurumba documentation project whose outcome will be a multilingual dictionary, a grammar, and a collection of annotated texts based on recordings of speech in various contexts.
Project archive deposit
Material from the project is available here Primary investigator: Gail CoelhoProject Details
Location: India, Southern Asia, Asia
Organiser(s):
Endangered Languages Documentation Programme
Project partner(s): SOAS, University of London
Funder(s):
Arcadia
Funding received: £9,881.00
Commencement Date: 01/2001
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