Pangloss Collection

The Pangloss Collection is a digital library whose objective is to store and facilitate access to audio recordings in endangered languages of the world. Developed by the LACITO centre of CNRS in Paris, the collection provides free online access to documents of connected, spontaneous speech, in otherwise little-documented languages of all continents.Michailovsky, Boyd, Martine Mazaudon, Alexis Michaud, Séverine Guillaume, Alexandre François & Evangelia Adamou. 2014
Documenting and researching endangered languages: the Pangloss Collection
'' Language Documentation & Conservation'' 8, pp. 119-135.

Principles

A sound archive with synchronized transcriptions

For the science of linguistics, language is first and foremost spoken language. The medium of spoken language is sound. The Pangloss Collection gives access to original recordings simultaneously with transcriptions and translations, as a resource for further research. After being recorded in its cultural context, texts have been transcribed in collaboration with native speakers.

A structured, open architecture

The archived data is structured in accordance with the latest data-processing standards, as open architecture, in an open format, and may be downloaded under a Creative Commons license. The software used to prepare and disseminate it is open-source. The Pangloss Collection is a member of the OLAC network of archival repositories and of the Digital Endangered Languages and Music Archive Network (DELAMAN).

History

The collection was initially called the ''LACITO Archive''.Screen capture of LACITO's archive homepage
— 27 February 2001. The project originated in 1996 from the collaboration of Boyd Michailovsky, linguist at LACITO, with John B. Lowe, engineer; they were later joined by Michel Jacobson, engineer, who developed some tools for the project, and brought it online.

The purpose of the archive was “''to conserve, and to make available for research, recorded and transcribed oral traditions and other linguistic materials in (mainly) unwritten languages, giving simultaneous access to sound recordings and text annotation''.” The earliest archived corpora in the collection were languages from Nepal, from New Caledonia, from eastern Africa and French Guiana.Screen capture of LACITO's archive contents
— 22 April 2002.

The archive has grown steadily since the early 2000s,“About us” section
of the Pangloss Collection (retrieved 24 April 2021) incorporating corpora from various linguists, whether members of LACITO or not. In 2009, the archive had 200 recordings in 45 languages.
— 26 November 2009. In 2014, the (newly renamed) ''Pangloss Collection'' had recordings in 70 languages.

As of April 2021, the Pangloss archive contains recordings in 196 languages, totalling 780 hours of audio and video recordings.

The main languages represented in the Pangloss Collection are
Mwotlap (Austronesian; Vanuatu),
Japhug (Sino-Tibetan; Southwest China),
Ersu (Sino-Tibetan; Southwest China),
Naxi (or ''Yongnin Na'': Sino-Tibetan; Southwest China),
and Cèmuhî (Austronesian; New Caledonia).
The main contributors to Pangloss (in number of resources archived) are linguists Alexandre François,
Katia Chirkova,
Guillaume Jacques,
and Michel Ferlus.Ferlus contribute
530 resources

References

External links

Homepage of the Pangloss Collection
* Sample text from the collection
“The Ogre Kanayongba”
a story in the Limbu language of Nepal, presented in bilingual format.
Access to the Pangloss Collection through its language mapAccess to the Pangloss Collection through the CoCoON search interface


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Endangered languages projects
Sound archives
Creative Commons-licensed websites
French National Centre for Scientific Research