Documentation of Gaviao and Surui languages in whistled and instrumental speech

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.

The project is to undertake the linguistic documentation and analysis of highly endangered traditional speech practices in two endangered Tupian languages of Brazilian Amazon: Gaviao and Surui. These practices consist of spoken speech emulated into whistles (for distance dialogues) or sung speech adapted into musical sounds (to perform a verbal art with musical instruments). Our pioneer methodology requires the sound, video and text documentation of corpora in spoken, whistled, sung and instrumental forms. Sociolinguistic and ecologic data will also be systematically gathered. This locally controlled work will be made accessible to both scientific and indigenous communities. Primary investigator: Julien Meyer

Project Details


Location: Brazil, South America, Brazil, Americas, United States of America Organiser(s): Endangered Languages Documentation Programme Project partner(s): Museu Paraense Emilio Goeldi Funder(s): Arcadia Funding received: £68,519.00 Commencement Date: 01/2004
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