A Dictionary of Nafsan, South Efate, Vanuatu

A Dictionary of Nafsan, South Efate, Vanuatu
Author: Nicholas Thieberger
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Total Pages: 211
Release: 2021-10-31
Genre: Foreign Language Study
ISBN: 0824890515

This is a dictionary of Nafsan, the language spoken in Vanuatu in the south of Efate Island in the villages of Erakor, Pango, and Eratap. Nafsan is one of 130 distinct languages spoken in Vanuatu. Over several decades, linguist Nicholas Thieberger worked in close collaboration with the Erakor community to record this unique language and to refine its written presentation. The resulting publication offers insight into the diversity of meanings available to speakers of Nafsan, providing some 3,400 senses for Nafsan words and an English-Nafsan finderlist. In addition, the book gives an overview of the Nafsan sound system, provides a list of existing literature on the language dating back to early missionary translations, and includes maps of Efate locating nearly 200 place names. Readers will also find South Efate cultural knowledge embedded in the explanations of the Nafsan words and their usages. A welcome companion to Thieberger’s A Grammar of South Efate (2006), this book complements and significantly augments other multimedia resources made available online by the author.

Human Language Technology. Challenges for Computer Science and Linguistics

Human Language Technology. Challenges for Computer Science and Linguistics
Author: Zygmunt Vetulani
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 383
Release: 2022-06-04
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 3031053281

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 9th Language and Technology Conference: Challenges for Computer Science and Linguistics, LTC 2019, held in Poznan, Poland, in May 2019. The 24 revised papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 67 submissions. The papers are categorized into the following topical sub-headings: Speech Processing; Language Resources and Tools; Computational Semantics; Emotions, Decisions and Opinions; Digital Humanities; Evaluation; and Legal Aspects.

A Grammar of South Efate

A Grammar of South Efate
Author: Nicholas Thieberger
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Total Pages: 418
Release: 2006-07-31
Genre: Foreign Language Study
ISBN: 082483061X

This book presents topics in the grammar of South Efate, an Oceanic language of Central Vanuatu as spoken in Erakor village on the outskirts of PortVila. It is one of the first such grammars to take seriously the provision of primary data for the verification of claims made in the analysis. The research is set in the context of increasing attention being paid to the state of the world’s smaller languages and their prospects for being spoken into the future. In addition to providing an outline of the grammar of the language, the author describes the process of developing an archivable textual corpus that is used to make example sentences citable and playable, using software (Audiamus) developed in the course of the research. An included DVD provides a dictionary and finderlist, a set of interlinearized example texts and elicited sentences, and playable media versions of most example sentences and of the example texts.

A South Efate Dictionary

A South Efate Dictionary
Author: Nicholas Thieberger
Publisher: UoM Custom Book Centre
Total Pages: 132
Release: 2011
Genre: South Efate language
ISBN: 9781921775512

The Oxford Handbook of Endangered Languages

The Oxford Handbook of Endangered Languages
Author: Kenneth L. Rehg
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 977
Release: 2018-07-18
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0190610034

The endangered languages crisis is widely acknowledged among scholars who deal with languages and indigenous peoples as one of the most pressing problems facing humanity, posing moral, practical, and scientific issues of enormous proportions. Simply put, no area of the world is immune from language endangerment. The Oxford Handbook of Endangered Languages, in 39 chapters, provides a comprehensive overview of the efforts that are being undertaken to deal with this crisis. A comprehensive reference reflecting the breadth of the field, the Handbook presents in detail both the range of thinking about language endangerment and the variety of responses to it, and broadens understanding of language endangerment, language documentation, and language revitalization, encouraging further research. The Handbook is organized into five parts. Part 1, Endangered Languages, addresses the fundamental issues that are essential to understanding the nature of the endangered languages crisis. Part 2, Language Documentation, provides an overview of the issues and activities of concern to linguists and others in their efforts to record and document endangered languages. Part 3, Language Revitalization, includes approaches, practices, and strategies for revitalizing endangered and sleeping ("dormant") languages. Part 4, Endangered Languages and Biocultural Diversity, extends the discussion of language endangerment beyond its conventional boundaries to consider the interrelationship of language, culture, and environment, and the common forces that now threaten the sustainability of their diversity. Part 5, Looking to the Future, addresses a variety of topics that are certain to be of consequence in future efforts to document and revitalize endangered languages.

Handbook of Linguistic Annotation

Handbook of Linguistic Annotation
Author: Nancy Ide
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 1440
Release: 2017-06-16
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9402408819

This handbook offers a thorough treatment of the science of linguistic annotation. Leaders in the field guide the reader through the process of modeling, creating an annotation language, building a corpus and evaluating it for correctness. Essential reading for both computer scientists and linguistic researchers.Linguistic annotation is an increasingly important activity in the field of computational linguistics because of its critical role in the development of language models for natural language processing applications. Part one of this book covers all phases of the linguistic annotation process, from annotation scheme design and choice of representation format through both the manual and automatic annotation process, evaluation, and iterative improvement of annotation accuracy. The second part of the book includes case studies of annotation projects across the spectrum of linguistic annotation types, including morpho-syntactic tagging, syntactic analyses, a range of semantic analyses (semantic roles, named entities, sentiment and opinion), time and event and spatial analyses, and discourse level analyses including discourse structure, co-reference, etc. Each case study addresses the various phases and processes discussed in the chapters of part one.

The Oxford Handbook of Endangered Languages

The Oxford Handbook of Endangered Languages
Author: Kenneth L. Rehg
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 1037
Release: 2018-07-18
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0190877049

The endangered languages crisis is widely acknowledged among scholars who deal with languages and indigenous peoples as one of the most pressing problems facing humanity, posing moral, practical, and scientific issues of enormous proportions. Simply put, no area of the world is immune from language endangerment. The Oxford Handbook of Endangered Languages, in 39 chapters, provides a comprehensive overview of the efforts that are being undertaken to deal with this crisis. A comprehensive reference reflecting the breadth of the field, the Handbook presents in detail both the range of thinking about language endangerment and the variety of responses to it, and broadens understanding of language endangerment, language documentation, and language revitalization, encouraging further research. The Handbook is organized into five parts. Part 1, Endangered Languages, addresses the fundamental issues that are essential to understanding the nature of the endangered languages crisis. Part 2, Language Documentation, provides an overview of the issues and activities of concern to linguists and others in their efforts to record and document endangered languages. Part 3, Language Revitalization, includes approaches, practices, and strategies for revitalizing endangered and sleeping ("dormant") languages. Part 4, Endangered Languages and Biocultural Diversity, extends the discussion of language endangerment beyond its conventional boundaries to consider the interrelationship of language, culture, and environment, and the common forces that now threaten the sustainability of their diversity. Part 5, Looking to the Future, addresses a variety of topics that are certain to be of consequence in future efforts to document and revitalize endangered languages.

Paper and Talk

Paper and Talk
Author:
Publisher: Aboriginal Studies Press
Total Pages: 209
Release: 1995
Genre: Foreign Language Study
ISBN: 0855752734

An excellent introduction to the complicated issues of language reconstruction, this concise guide explores languages that are no longer spoken or those that are spoken by only a few people. Each contributor works through some of the complex issues vital to language workers in an accessible, easy-to-read style, and exercises throughout the book provide immediate ways to put the ideas into practice and experience the rewards and frustrations of this kind of language work.

Research Methods for the Digital Humanities

Research Methods for the Digital Humanities
Author: lewis levenberg
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 330
Release: 2018-11-04
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3319967134

This volume introduces the reader to the wide range of methods that digital humanities employ, and offers a practical guide to the study, interpretation, and presentation of cultural material and practices. In this instance, the editors consider digital humanities to include both the use of computing to understand cultural material in new ways, and the application of theories and methods from the humanities to interpret new technologies. Each chapter provides a step-by-step guide to cutting-edge methodologies so that students can make informed decisions about the methods they use, consider ethical practices, follow practical procedures, and present their work effectively. Readers will develop practical and reflexive understandings of the software and digital devices that they study and use for research, and the book will help new researchers collaborate and contribute to their scholarly communities, and to public discourse. As contemporary humanities work becomes increasingly interdisciplinary, and increasingly permeated by and with digital technologies, this volume helps new researchers navigate an evolving academic environment. Humanities and social sciences students will find this textbook an invaluable resource for assessing and creating digital projects.

The Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Fieldwork

The Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Fieldwork
Author: Nicholas Thieberger
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 560
Release: 2011-11-24
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0191632821

This book offers a state-of-the-art guide to linguistic fieldwork, reflecting its collaborative nature across the subfields of linguistics and disciplines such as astronomy, anthropology, biology, musicology, and ethnography. Experienced scholars and fieldworkers explain the methods and approaches needed to understand a language in its full cultural context and to document it accessibly and enduringly. They consider the application of new technological approaches to recording and documentation, but never lose sight of the crucial relationship between subject and researcher. The book is timely: an increased awareness of dying languages and vanishing dialects has stimulated the impetus for recording them as well as the funds required to do so. The handbook is an indispensible source, guide, and reference for everyone involved in linguistic and cultural work.