Documenting Caac, an endangered language spoken in the north of New Caledonia
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 will document Caac (ISO 639-3 msq), a Southern Oceanic language spoken by the Mwelebeng people (1050 speakers in 2003) living in the region of Hoot ma Waap, northern New Caledonia (21 30 S, 165 30 E). A corpus of audio and video data will be transcribed, annotated and translated from the basis of a doctoral thesis focusing on spatial expression in Caac. The project also proposes to revise a dictionary compiled by Hollyman & Mwêau (1967) and produce pedagogical material in line with recent national and regional policies.
Primary investigator: Aurelie Cauchard
Project Details
Location: New Caledonia, Melanesia, Oceania
Organiser(s):
Endangered Languages Documentation Programme
Project partner(s): University of Manchester
Funder(s):
Arcadia
Funding received: £54,054.00
Commencement Date: 01/2006
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