Documentation of the Saru dialect of Ainu

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.

I propose to undertake a two-year documentation of the Saru dialect of Ainu which is nearly extinct at present, as only a couple of persons aged 80/1990 on the South of Hokkaido Island in Northern Japan remember their native language.I intend to produce a corpus of previously recorded unpublished audio materials of Mrs. Kimi Kimura (1900-1988) and a corpus of newly collected audio materials with time-aligned transcriptions, multi-tire annotation, and translations into English and Japanese to be deposited with a web-accessible digital archive ELAR at SOAS and at Chiba University which will serve as a mirror site. Primary investigator: Anna Bugaeva

Project Details


Location: Japan, Eastern Asia, Asia Organiser(s): Endangered Languages Documentation Programme Project partner(s): Chiba University, then transferred to Waseda University Funder(s): Arcadia Funding received: £71,225.00 Commencement Date: 01/2003
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