E-research award supports archive of endangered languages

E-research award supports archive of endangered languages

Media Release, Thursday 13 November 2008

An archival project that aims to preserve 'endangered languages' from across Australia and the Pacific region in a massive database has been rewarded with a major e-research award presented to researchers in the University of Melbourne’s School of Languages and Linguistics.

The Pacific and Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures (PARADISEC) project has been recognised with the Victorian eResearch Strategic Initiative (VeRSI) Award in humanities and social sciences.

Project Manager and ARC QE II Fellow in the School of Languages and Linguistics, Dr Nick Thieberger, says the PARADISEC project is enabling vast amounts of data to be turned into useful shared knowledge. It is a collaboration between the University of Melbourne, the ANU and the Universities of Sydney and New England.

Melbourne participants in the project with Dr Thieberger are Professor John Hajek and Associate Professor Janet Fletcher, from the School of Languages and Linguistics.

Dr Thieberger says that Australia and its immediate neighbours are home to a third of the world's languages, most of which could disappear without trace.

The national archive project is capturing what it can, and making the resource available online to researchers and regional cultural centres.

"This is vitally important work which often records language structures and knowledge of the culture and physical environment that would otherwise be lost," he says.

"Australia and its immediate neighbours are home to languages which may never be recorded and many of which could include completely novel structures or ways of viewing the world."

The PARADISEC project uses terabytes of storage to transparently house, describe and search archival material in digital form to internationally accepted standards. It allows ethnographers to ensure their precious recordings and notes are safely stored electronically while at the same time making the material available via CD to regional cultural centres and to authorised users through a website at www.paradisec.org.au.