Linguistic and cultural documentation of urgently endangered Sadu language in Yuxi City, Yunnan Province, China

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.

Sadu group, with a population of 1,505 (2009), live in three villages of Yuxi Municipality,Yunnan Province, China, roughly at longitude of 102°17'32?E and latitude of 24°08'30?N. The Government lumped them into the Bai nationality in 1958. However, their language is not intelligible to Bai, nor to the neighbouring Yi nationality. The project will focus on documentation and salvage of this endangered language. It will target recording texts, legends, stories, folk songs, proverbs, marriage and funeral ceremonies comprehensively involved in their real life. Data will be collected by using audio recording combined with video footage. A sociolinguistic survey will also be carried out. Primary investigator: Xianming Xu

Project Details


Location: China, China, Mexico, China, Central America, Eastern Asia, Asia, Americas Organiser(s): Endangered Languages Documentation Programme Project partner(s): Yuxi Normal University Funder(s): Arcadia Funding received: £35,763.00 Commencement Date: 01/2006
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