Kimaragang Grammar Outline and Digital Recordings

FAIN: FN-50027-07

Paul R. Kroeger
Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics (Dallas, TX 75236-5629)

This fellowship will support the documentation of Kimaragang Dusun, an endangered Austronesian language spoken in northeastern Borneo. The two primary goals for the fellowship period are (1) to write a short descriptive grammar and prepare it for publication as a monograph; and (2) to record and archive at least 10 hours of Kimaragang speech in digital audio format. The descriptive grammar will build on short articles recently published by the applicant, the applicant's field notes, and an unpublished lexical database compiled by Jim Johansson to be supplemented by new data to be elicited during the fieldwork phase of the project. Some native speakers will be trained to do recording, transcription, and data entry tasks, which may lead to future involvement in language revitalization efforts. Local publication of a descriptive grammar should help to gain increased recognition for the language on the state and national levels. This research will be carried out in cooperation with the Kadazandusun Language Foundation. Digital audio files and transcriptions of the Kimaragang texts will be deposited with the Pacific and Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures in Australia. (Edited by staff)