Documentation of Central Tseltal: creation of a broad corpus for multiple uses

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.

This project proposes documentation of Central Tseltal (a Mayan language spoken in Chiapas, Mexico), a language that has been the focus of a previous linguitic research but without any available corpus. The intention is to gather a consistent corpus, sixty hours of audio and video recordings for multiple uses: a possible dictionary, the register of the dfferent genres of speech (narrations, casual and formal conversatons, ritual and religious speech and instruction speech, amnog others) , as well as grammatical and typological studies.The corpus will be electronically archived and a selection of documents will be edited for a bilingual education project that Dr Polian has been collaborating with. Primary investigator: Gilles Polian

Project Details


Location: Mexico, Mexico, Philippines, Central America, South-Eastern Asia, Mexico, Asia, Americas, United States of America Organiser(s): Endangered Languages Documentation Programme Project partner(s): CIESAS-SURESTE Funder(s): Arcadia Funding received: £6,080.00 Commencement Date: 01/2002
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