LINGUIST List 12.1623

Tue Jun 19 2001

FYI: Native American Languages, HCRC Map Task Corpus

Editor for this issue: Marie Klopfenstein <marielinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Erik Rauch, Resources for Endangered Native American Languages
2. Jean Carletta, Release of HCRC Map Task Corpus Annotations

I would like to announce a web site called Resources for Endangered
Languages (http://nativelanguages.org).

It has pointers to organizations that offer grants for Native American 
language revitalization projects originated from within the communities
themselves, as well as links to the full text of books giving the best
methods for revitalizing languages and reversing language shift. It
presents an account of successful Native American and other language
revitalization projects, including the Maori language nests. 

If you find it worthy, I would appreciate it if you could let webmasters
of endangered language or indigenous people sites know about it. 

Sincerely,
Erik Rauch
Editor

The Human Communication Research Centre is pleased to announce the
availability of the HCRC Map Task Corpus XML annotations, at

 http://www.hcrc.ed.ac.uk/maptask/

In 1992, the HCRC publicly released the HCRC Map Task Corpus, a corpus
of task-oriented dialogues, on CD. The CDs contained the sound files,
dialogue transcription, and the materials which subjects used to
complete the task.

We are now making HCRC's annotations of the Map Task Corpus publicly
available. These annotations include updated transcription of the
speech, dialogue structure at three levels (moves, games, and transactions),
part of speech tags, syntax,gaze, landmark references, and when the
participants were using their pens. The annotations are represented in
XML using a technique called ``stand-off annotation'' (see
http://www.hcrc.ed.ac.uk/maptask/bidialog-paper.ps). Pointers to times
in the original sound files allow the speech material to be located easily.

Jean Carletta
Amy Isard
Henry S. Thompson

Human Communication Research Centre
University of Edinburgh