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The History of AILLA

AILLA is a joint project of the Departments of Anthropology and Linguistics and the Digital Library Services Division of the General Libraries at the University of Texas at Austin.

The Idea

Joel Sherzer, a professor of Anthropology at UT Austin, has been conducting research on the Kuna language of Panama for more than 30 years. Over the years he has amassed a sizeable collection of recordings of Kuna discourse, including performances that are of tremendous importance to the Kuna people.

Other scholars, in the U.S., Latin America, and Europe, have also built substantial collections of recordings and texts over the years. If these materials were collected together, they would constitute a tremendous resource for the documentation and analysis of the indigenous languages of Latin America, and for creating educational materials for language reclamation programs.

Sherzer has long been concerned about the preservation of these priceless collections of indigenous verbal art. Now, the rapid development of affordable technologies for creating and using digital media make it possible for AILLA to collect, digitize, and permanently preserve them in standard formats that anyone can access through widely-available software tools. The Internet makes it possible to serve these resources to a global audience, that most importantly includes the speakers of the languages represented in the archive.

The Pilot Phase

The AILLA project was founded in 2000 by Joel Sherzer of the Department of Anthropology, Anthony Woodbury of the Department of Linguistics, and Mark McFarland, Director of the Digital Library Services Division of the UT General Library System. The pilot web site and database, launched in April, 2000, were built by a group of Sherzer's graduate students: Christine Beier, William Fairchild, Ajb'ee Jimenez, and Lev Michael. The first year of the project was supported by a grant from the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts at UT Austin.

Current Status

AILLA is currently supported by grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Science Foundation. For details about the technological infrastructure of the archive, read the Technical Specifications page. The collection is growing rapidly: watch the News page for information about new acquisitions and developments.