S.A.I.V.U.S.

Started by Taronyu, October 09, 2010, 05:33:43 PM

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Taronyu

So, I figured I should share this on here at some point. I have an internship with SAIVUS - the Society to Advance Indigenous Languages of the United States. What I'll be doing is working on iPhone apps (I hope, time willing) for Lakota, an endangered Native American language spoken in the Dakotas. Here's the introduction to Saivus, which explains our goal a bit further.

www.saivus.org

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Founded in 2008, SAIVUS ("save us") provides online course material for Native American languages currently spoken in the United States. "Native Americans" are the aboriginal peoples of the Americas, otherwise known as "American Indians" or "First Nations." Legally, this term also applies to Alaskan Natives and Native Hawaiians, who have separate origins but share a similar history.

Over the next century over half of at least three hundred north Native American languages are expected to die. Language revitalization is a truly massive undertaking, but hopefully we can fulfill a small part of that need. One of the largest obstacles native languages face today is a lack of quality educational materials.

Many native peoples must resort to self-study to learn their own languages for a variety of reasons. Some work menial jobs and have little time and energy for classes. Since the 1950s, groups of American Indians have flocked to major cities looking for work i.e. "urban Indians" where their descendants are isolated from the main speaking body. Sometimes parents intentionally discourage their children from speaking indigenous languages to shelter them from prejudice or teasing. After all, for much of the 19th and 20th centuries American Indian children were forced to attend boarding schools where they were beaten for speaking a non-European language.

SAIVUS was established to provide comprehensive grammar tutorials, word lists, practice exercises and other materials vital to modern language health. Not only are these materials completely cost-free, they can also be printed out and distributed to people without internet access.

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I just thought that some of you might find it interesting. :) And yes, there's stuff you can do to help out, if you're so obliged. Just go here.

Le'eylan

Eltur tìtxen si nìngay...
Krro krro pamrel seri fìtsengmì, alu oey pìlok leNa'vi
Sometimes writing here, on my Na'vi blog
=^● ⋏ ●^=

Kayrìlien

This is a great idea. As someone that lived in Albuquerque, NM as a child, I definitely know what many Native Americans are going up against when they try to preserve their cultures. I mean, the vast majority of the city was only concerned with the local tribes to the extent of A: Can we build new subdivisions on your reservation, and B: You guys aren't opening up another casino, are you?

The school systems were at least a bit more encompassing; we took annual field trips to places such as the Acoma pueblo and Chimayo sanctuary (though the latter is a Spanish/Mexican/Catholic pilgrimage site that has little to do with Native Americans), and often had little "cultural festivals" that, while a nice gesture, were obviously meant for elementary school-age children and therefore a bit predictable and tacky.

But yeah, preserving as many languages as possible is a tough goal, but by doing it online, you guys are providing easy access to as many people as possible. I had personally searched the internet frantically for information about the Mi'kmaq language a couple years ago after hearing a Native language version of the Huron Carol. (To be quite honest, that was actually the first time I had even taken an interest in linguistics...look what that led to! Na'vi FTW!) It took a while, but I eventually found a website that was attempting to do what you guys are doing for that specific language, and it was really cool.

Just curious, but what made you choose Lakota? Do you have a personal tie to the language or is it just something that piqued your curiosity?

Kayrìlien

Taronyu

It was the opportunity which opened up for me. It's a fairly interesting language, as well, so I'm glad to be able to do some work in it.

I'd be very interested in what site that was. Mi'kmaq is a cool language.

I looked up a word in an Aleut dictionary the other day, too...

Kayrìlien

Quote from: Taronyu on October 09, 2010, 06:03:56 PM
It was the opportunity which opened up for me. It's a fairly interesting language, as well, so I'm glad to be able to do some work in it.

I get it; it's dependent on what they need most. Makes sense.

Quote from: Taronyu on October 09, 2010, 06:03:56 PM
I'd be very interested in what site that was. Mi'kmaq is a cool language.

Here's the link:  http://www.firstnationhelp.com/ali/    It hasn't been updated in a few years, but all the basics are still there.

The language is really cool; something I noticed that I thought was sort of funny (from an I-only-speak-English-Spanish-and-Na'vi perspective) was the relatively long words for small numbers. For example, the number 10 is "mtln kisna newtiskaq". Seriously...seven syllables for the number ten. I mean, maybe the phrase literally means something like "number of fingers on both hands" or something; I don't know, but that just stuck out at me as being particularly odd.

The song recording I was talking about earlier is actually on the website too; here's the link and a translation:  http://www.firstnationhelp.com/huron.html

Hope you enjoy,

Kayrìlien

Kì'eyawn

This is awesome, ma tsmukan!  I met a Lakota storyteller a few weeks ago, he was really cool.  If it weren't so f***ing cold in the Dakotas, i'd consider going out there to help in some way.  But i think what'll end up happening is once i'm "settled" somewhere i'll find out what the local indigenous languages are and try to help in whatever way i can.

I have a blog post in the works right now, but hopefully i can do the next one on languages.  In any case, i'll add a link to SAIVUS to my blog page.
eo Eywa oe 'ia

Fra'uri tìyawnur oe täpivìng nìwotx...

Seze

Good luck on the iPhone App development.  You are more than welcome to use the code from the Learn Na'vi Mobile App, not only to help you learn iPhone App development, but to also save you time building Apps for SAIVUS.  Also if you ever have any questions or need any help with the app development, feel free to send me an email.   ;)


Learn Na'vi Mobile App - Now Available

omängum fra'uti

If you model it closely after the LN iPhone app, it would also be somewhat easy to bring it to Android as well.
Ftxey lu nga tokx ftxey lu nga tirea? Lu oe tìkeftxo.
Listen to my Na'vi Lessons podcast!

Seze

Quote from: omängum fra'uti on October 14, 2010, 06:30:29 PM
If you model it closely after the LN iPhone app, it would also be somewhat easy to bring it to Android as well.

Sran, the code for both iOS and Android is all open source and available online.


Learn Na'vi Mobile App - Now Available

Taronyu

Kayrìlien, that's awesome, thanks. I really like the song in particular. And yes, First Nation languages are, as a whole, ridiculous. Compared to European ones, anyway.

Kì'eyawn, awesome, I'll look forward to reading that. No reason you can't work from home, too. Email Mathias Bullerman at Saivus if you want some stuff to do, I'm sure we could figure something out.

Seze, thanks very much for the offer. I'm being hedl back right now by other schoolwork, but as soon as some more of it is out of my way I'll get into it more fully. I'll definitely take a look at the LNMA code. :D And I'll try to make them applicable to android, as well.

Taronyu


Kì'eyawn

eo Eywa oe 'ia

Fra'uri tìyawnur oe täpivìng nìwotx...

Kayrìlien

Quote from: Taronyu on October 16, 2010, 05:51:22 AM
Kayrìlien, check this out! http://www.migmaqresource.org/news/phd-dissertation-defense-indigenous-language-first-canada

He defended his thesis entirely in Miq'mak!

That's AWESOME! I'd love to see a copy of that, not that I'd know what it's about, but still...that's really great! It's so nice to see that languages like this are still being used, and in a dissertation defense no less!

Thanks for that, Taronyu!

Kayrìlien

'eylan na'viyä

As speaking of language tools i would like to mention 2 projects:

Spellchecking dictionaries
I created a php script that can generate na'vi spellchecking dictionaries and addons automatically. It is split into 2 parts. The first one generates the actual dictionary file out of an sql dump of eana eltu. The other one combines this file and some other files with rules and settings to a variety of different addon files that are different for all applications. This script could easily be adopted to other languages. The only thing you need is a machine readably dictionary, preferably with word types.

I think compared to the effort the use is great. These spellchecking dictionaries are available for many popular applications and could help to correct errors or to learn by noticing when making an error.
http://forum.learnnavi.org/projects/new-autogenerated-spellchecking-dictionaries-for-many-applications/

If you have any questions about this script just ask. The sources are available for download some post below.


gigadictionary.org

There is a new project which is kind of an online dictionary. Unlike the majority (at least all dictionaries that i know) it is open to any language and btw also to Na'vi. That is important because other pages, if they include user requested languages at all, rate the languages by number of speakers and thus would put endangered languages on waiting lists.

This is the post where the founder suggested to add Na'vi:
http://forum.learnnavi.org/suggestions/navi-and-gigadictionary-org/
It combines the advantages of a dictionary and a wiktionary.