The paradox of digital preservation: Caging a living language to save it

“ Documenting linguistic diversity seeks to preserve languages for posterity in a context in which half of today’s 6,500 languages will be extinct in the next hundred years (Crystal 1996; Bradley and Bradley 2002) . The idea of preserving linguistic diversity as an expression of our species is certainly valuable, but it is less so when the great majority of documentation projects are focused on archiving only, i.e. without a view to mobilising outcomes for the survival of languages and cultures. ”

“ Most of these are digital archives because documentation is inextricably linked with digital technologies in four ways: digital recording has made portable, high quality recording affordable; long term preservation of audio and video is possible only through lossless digital copying (IASA 2005) ; most researchers use computers to annotate media and create data and analysis in general; and the World Wide Web has become the ubiquitous platform for accessing documentation materials.
A digital documentation archive has to be more than a data repository. ”

“ Well, there are a couple of different things that are resources, et cetera, that are online, and they're available to our community, generally speaking only. So there is a database, it's called Mirima. It was developed by one of our first languages in Australia, members, actually. So that is a database that has every word history that we have produced, for every single word that has been revived on that database. And so you can do a search on the database in English or in Palawa for a particular word, and it'll bring up the word histories. ”

“ And we do that with the International Phonetics Alphabet (IPA) , and then it is put into the Palawa sound and spelling system so it's spelled in our language. So all of that information is on that word history. So, the community can go to the database, have a look at the word, and have a look to see, well, how did they find that word? Where did they get that, where did it come from? Why is it this word and not another word? And they can also hear the word said; there's an audio of the word on the database as well. And that's available to our community only. ”

“ Focus on primary data: documentation is based around collecting and analysing a range of primary language data Interdisciplinarity: documentation requires expertise from a range of disciplines, not just linguists. Its data should be available and accessible to a wide range of users Involvement of the speech community: collaboration with community members not only as consultants but also as co-researchers Archiving: materials should be preserved and made available to a range of potential users into the distant future Figure 1. ”

“ There is the danger of identifying language, not with thoughts but with ideas. (4) There is the error of supposing that the analysis of grammar and logic has always existed, or that their distinctions were familiar to Socrates and Plato. (5) There is the fallacy of exaggerating, and also of diminishing the interval which separates articulate from inarticulate language—the cries of animals from the speech of man—the instincts of animals from the reason of man. ”

“ So the whole sentence may be conscious, but the several words, syllables, letters are not thought of separately when we are uttering them. Like other natural operations, the process of speech, when most perfect, is least observed by us. We do not pause at each mouthful to dwell upon the taste of it: nor has the speaker time to ask himself the comparative merits of different modes of expression while he is uttering them. There are many things in the use of language which may be observed from without, but which cannot be explained from within. ”

“ An analogy, a figure of speech, an intelligible theory, a superficial observation of the individual, have often been mistaken for a true account of the origin of language.
Speaking is one of the simplest natural operations, and also the most complex. Nothing would seem to be easier or more trivial than a few words uttered by a child in any language. Yet into the formation of those words have entered causes which the human mind is not capable of calculating. They are a drop or two of the great stream or ocean of speech which has been flowing in all ages. ”

“ There are other errors besides the figment of a primitive or original language which it is time to leave behind us. We no longer divide languages into synthetical and analytical, or suppose similarity of structure to be the safe or only guide to the affinities of them. We do not confuse the parts of speech with the categories of Logic. Nor do we conceive languages any more than civilisations to be in a state of dissolution; they do not easily pass away, but are far more tenacious of life than the tribes by whom they are spoken. ”

“ Protocol extends from the beginning of any documentation activity (e.g. when a documenter seeks informed consent from speakers, and then collects metadata on sensitivity and access from them for each recording) through to the mechanisms for providing, restricting, or negotiating about archived materials. To understand the pervasive importance of protocol for language documentation, consider that endangered language communities and their speakers are typically under various pressures and deprivations that are also contributing causes to the decline of their languages. ”

“ As can be seen from Figure 3, we made a bold commitment to make protocol a prominent feature of the archive interface [17] . It inverts the navigational design of other archives where one searches and navigates to a resource of interest, only to be faced by a “not available” message or a pop-up demanding a log in to an unknown service; users do not discover that a given resource is closed until having completed a possibly complex search. In such archives it can even be difficult for depositors themselves to know what access conditions currently hold for their own materials. ”

“ In the later analysis of language, we trace the opposite and contrasted elements of the individual and nation, of the past and present, of the inward and outward, of the subject and object, of the notional and relational, of the root or unchanging part of the word and of the changing inflexion, if such a distinction be admitted, of the vowel and the consonant, of quantity and accent, of speech and writing, of poetry and prose. We observe also the reciprocal influence of sounds and conceptions on each other, like the connexion of body and mind ”

“ In considering the use of words in research, one cannot of course overlook the obvious fact that the employment of words is primarily determined by their established meanings, and that these greatly limit our freedom to use them as we please. Words naturally and inevitably suggest their established uses by their mere sounds, and should always be used with a proper respect for their past history and present meaning. ”

“ We must come to every inquiry with a willingness to learn and to expand our terms. The Fixity of Terms, as it is tacitly presupposed in the traditional logic, is a scientific blunder of the gravest kind.
§ 13. (3) To renounce it, however, entails further consequences. It appears to undermine the whole notion of formal validity. For if we admit in principle that the meaning of terms depends vitally on that of the judgement in which they occur, how can we continue to rely absolutely on the mere verbal identity of its terms to hold together a syllogism? ”

“ But even in these polyglot establishments there is nobody to teach you American. I have never seen a grammar of it or a dictionary. I have searched in vain at the booksellers for "How to Learn American in Three Weeks" or some similar compendium. Nothing of the sort exists. The native speech of one hundred millions of civilized people is as grossly neglected by the publishers as it is by the schoolmasters. ”

“ In both English and High German, during their middle periods, all the terminal vowels degenerated to e—now sunk to the aforesaid neutral vowel in many German words, and expunged from English altogether. The same sound is encountered in languages so widely differing otherwise as Arabic, French and Swedish. "Its existence," says Sayce, "is a sign of age and decay; meaning has become more important than outward form, and the educated intelligence no longer demands a clear pronunciation in order to understand what is said." ”

“ The use of language documentation is clear when viewed from the perspective of linguists and anthropologists or even from that of governmental agencies concerned with positioning the nation-state in the multicultural market. However, when seen through the lens of speakers themselves, the relevance and practicality of language documentation becomes blurred by other more important matters concerning their physical and cultural survival. ”

“ Policy makers, governmental agencies, non-governmental organisations, research institutes and scholars must realise that talk about endangered languages and cultures goes beyond languages and cultures and involves human beings. ”

“ It is certain that obtaining informed consent of the speech community rather than individuals and sharing views of documentation with a larger audience can help to get the meaning through, but still it is not enough. Language detached from culture and culture detached from physical survival lack sense for speakers as human beings. ”

“ The utmost extent of something like knowledge which the most intelligent and sagacious dog acquires, dies with it, and its successor has to learn all for itself. As for language, in the true meaning of the word, of what use would it be to brutes? Among the highest, as far as the necessity of communication extends, cries or modulations of tone and certain actions suffice to convey a distinct meaning; among the lowest, there is no necessity even for utterance, and there is no sense of hearing, nor even of vision. ”

“ If documentation outcomes must serve the social, economic and cultural promotion of indigenous peoples, then indigenous peoples must be the first users of those outcomes. On these grounds, it is essential to discuss with speech communities more practical ways to make outcomes of documentation easily accessible to them. It is useless, for example, to simply return digital copies of audiovisual material to the communities if they do not have electricity or DVD players or personal computers. ”

“ Deprived of these resources, reduced to uniformity of procedure, the insect would be incapable of pursuing its calling.
We see at once how imprudent it would be to draw conclusions from an isolated case in which rational co-ordination or premeditated intention might appear to play its part. Every instinctive action no doubt has its motive; but does the animal in the first place judge whether the action is opportune? Let us begin by a careful consideration of the creature's labours; let us support each piece of evidence by others ”

“ No mental faculty, assisted by sight, informs her when she has enough, or when she has too little. An instinctive predisposition is her only guide, an infallible guide under normal conditions, but hopelessly lost when subjected to the wiles of the experimenter. Had the Bee the least glimmer of reason would she lay her egg on the third, on the tenth part of the necessary provender? Would she lay it in an empty cell? Would she be guilty of such inconceivable maternal aberration as to leave her nurseling without nourishment? ”

“ Zealous to excess before the laying is over, she is indifferent afterwards. The finished work no longer concerns her. Imagine a pebble in the place of the ovoid or pear: the mother would treat it no better and no worse. One sole preoccupation urges her: to get away. I can see that by the manner in which she paces the enclosure that keeps her prisoner.
That is instinct’s way: it buries perseveringly the lifeless lump and leaves the quickened lump to perish on the surface. The work to be done is everything; the work done no longer counts. Instinct sees the future and knows nothing of the past. ”

“ Ex hypothesi we are inquiring farther into the subject, because our knowledge is felt to be insufficient. Accordingly the probable defects of the terminology we are initially forced to use must be borne in mind: we may expect it to omit what is unknown, to misdescribe and to classify wrongly what is partially known, putting together what does not belong together and separating what does, emphasizing the unimportant and slurring over the important, and generally failing to provide the mind with words that give it a real apprehension of the objects under inquiry. ”

“ The effect would be very different if an adequate logic of discovery had imbued the mind with an ever-​present thought that every subject may and must be considered from several points of view, and that an inquirer should beware of letting his predilections and preconceptions blind him to possible alternatives. The logical attitude of inquiry, when fully understood, demands a tolerant and open mind, and excludes the narrow-​mindedness and dogmatism which the theory of proof has fostered by its pretence of showing that there was but one truth and one inevitable way of reaching it. ”

“ A scientific logic therefore should radically disabuse the mind of any excessive trust in ‘facts’. It is a superstition that ‘facts’ are plain, straightforward, and easy to discover; they are often subtle and recondite and relative to circumstances, changing their aspect to suit their scientific environment like any chameleon. ”

“ The problem of discovery, therefore, is never one of which the solution can be guaranteed in advance. The resources of a science are never sufficient to assure us of a prosperous issue of the research, though, rightly understood, they yield important safeguards. A recognition of the instrumental value of words as ancillary to meaning, and of the limitations under which they labour, will guard the inquirer against the terrible verbalism to which logic has been enslaved. ”