Documenting & Describing Endangered Languages
Taster activity, British Academy Summer Showcase 2022
Most of the world's 7000 languages are spoken by small minority ethnic groups. Many are unwritten and undocumented, and up to 90% of languages may disappear by the end of this century, due to socioeconomic and political pressures. For example, children often cannot access education in their native language.
ACTIVITY: You are a linguist, figuring out the grammar of a previously unstudied language. This information can be used by a community to help create resources for their language. And, with each language described, we learn more about human linguistic diversity.
Huave is spoken in just four Indigenous coastal villages in Oaxaca State, southern Mexico. It is an isolate, unrelated to any other known language.
Listen carefully to these recordings from San Francisco del Mar, where the language is called umbeyajts. Only a few fluent speakers are still alive.
Here are three conjugated forms of the verb "smell". Try to repeat the words! Don't worry if the sounds are unfamiliar - just do your best.
Have a go at writing down what you hear. You can write in any way that helps you represent the sounds on paper.
!! If the audio doesn't play, please hover and click "pop-out" !!
I smell (it)
saxim-20120706-bnm-06.mp3You smell (it)
ixim-20120706-bnm-06.mp3He/she smells (it)
axim-20120706-bnm-06.mp3Here are three forms of the verb "clean". Again, try to repeat and write.
You'll hear an "n"-like sound that might sound different from the "n" you are used to. If you like, you can write it as capital N. (The International Phonetic Alphabet symbol for this sound is ɲ.)
I clean (it)
sajony_20120706-bnm-07.mp3You clean (it)
ijony-20120706-bnm-07.mp3He/she cleans (it)
ajony-20120706-bnm-07.mp3Take a moment to examine all the words for "smell" and "clean" that you have written down.
Which part of the word changes, according to the person (I, you, or he/she) doing the action? Is this similar to or different from other languages you know about?
Can you circle just the part of the word that seems to mean "smell" (that is, leaving out the part that tells you who is doing the smelling)? And just the part of the word that means "clean"?
Don't worry if you are unsure. Like other scientists, linguists think up hypotheses and test them, until they find the best fit for all the facts they can find. So, what's your first hypothesis?
akeny-20120706-bnm-07.mp3Here is how to say "she carries (it) on her hip". (Notice that it has the same n-like sound as "clean".) Write the word down.
Now, without listening, and based on the previous words, can you guess how to say "I carry (it) on my hip"?
Then, check your answer by clicking the audio to the right. Did you guess correctly?
sakeny-20120706-bnm-07.mp3Further information
The UN has declared 2022-2032 as the International Decade of Indigenous Languages.
The man whose voice you have heard is Mr. Benito Nieto Martínez (b. 1933), recorded in 2012.
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) contains a unique symbol for every known speech sound, so, in principle, it can be used to transcribe any language. Find out more!
If you have questions or want to know more about this topic or activity, please feel free to contact Yuni Kim (y.kim@essex.ac.uk).