News and Announcements

Archived language identified!

Since 2004, a recording of an unidentified language has been living in AILLA in the Argentinian Languages Collection of Herminia Martín under the resource folder name "Conversation in unspecified language". When Herminia Martín's open reel tapes where digitized and added to AILLA in 2004, this tape was not labeled. AILLA staff knew that it had to be one of four languages (Chorote, Nivaclé, Pilagá or Wichí Lhamtés Vejoz), but they were not able determine exactly which one it was.

New collection of Iskonawa language materials

New in AILLA this month is the Iskonawa Language Collection of José Antonio Mazzotti, Roberto Zariquiey, Rodolfo Cerrón Palomino and Carolina Rodríguez Alzzaa. This collection focuses on Iskonawa, a Panoan language spoken by only a very few individuals, several of whom appear in this collection. The collection has about 4.5 hours of audio and video, much of it transcribed and translated into Spanish, as well as documents containing a 240 page grammar sketch and a 1700-entry vocabulary of Iskonawa.

AILLA receives NEH grants

We are pleased to announce that the National Endowment for the Humanities has awarded AILLA with two grants. One will support the gathering, curation, and digitization of eight significant collections covering decades of research on the languages of the Upper Río Negro region of the Northwest Amazon and Ecuadorian Kichwa. The other will support a pilot project exploring collaborative ways to improve collections at AILLA via crowdsourced transcription.

Expansion of the Emberá Collection of Stephanie Kane

AILLA is pleased to announce a large addition of new material into the Emberá Collection of Stephanie Kane. AILLA has digitized over 22 hours’ worth audio cassettes and open-reel tapes that Kane recorded between 1983 and 1985 among the Emberá (Chocó; ISO 639-3: emp) of Panamá. The recordings cover personal and community histories in addition to myths, traditional songs and cumbia music. Kane also recorded a few narratives in the related Catío (ISO 639-3: cto) and Wounmeu (ISO 639-3: noa) languages.