Documenting the Salish Language

FAIN: FN-50087-11

Joshua William Brown
Salish Kootenai College (Pablo, MT 59855)

The Salish language has fewer than thirty fluent speakers still living, and most of these are over 70. To address the endangered state of the language, which faces complete eradication, this project has three main components: 1) archival review and transcription, 2) the elicitation of new audio and video recordings through interviewing fluent speakers, and 3) the indexing of both archival and newly created materials. In the review of existing audio/video recordings, material will be selected to represent different types of language use including conversations, storytelling in the first person, and interaction between an instructor and students. An interlinear analysis of the transcriptions will be conducted following standard protocols and separation of morphemes. New recordings will be archived in multiple copies at different locations including the Endangered Language Archive. (Edited by staff)