The phonetic documentation of Indigenous languages often lags behind the lexical and grammatical documentation, in both quantity and quality. Thus, even among the small number of relatively well-documented Indigenous languages, key questions about articulatory strategies, acoustic cues to phoneme discrimination, and the overall structure of the prosodic system are often left unanswered. This is the result of several different factors, including the training given to documentary linguists, and the practical challenges of doing various types of phonetic analysis on “messy” field recordings.

When languages are phonetically underdocumented, it can also impair a community's language revitalization efforts, especially where there are phonetic differences between older monolinguals and younger bilingual speakers (Baird and Mulík 2024), or where adult learners need to master a wide array of new sounds (Bird and Kell 2017). Innovative approaches to training community members in using tools such as ultrasound (Bliss et al. 2018), Praat (Bird et al. 2023), and MeTILDA (Chen et al. 2024), highlight the potential for the work of phoneticians to have a positive impact on language sustainability.

In this talk we will discuss the ways in which phoneticians can support both the documentation and revitalization goals of Indigenous communities through meaningful and mutually-beneficial collaboration.

Baird, B., & Mulík, S. (2024). The Phonetics and Phonology of Indigenous Language Bilinguals. In M. Amengual (Ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of Bilingual Phonetics and Phonology (pp. 584–606). chapter, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Bird, S., & Kell, S. (2017). The Role of Pronunciation in SENĆOŦEN Language Revitalization. The Canadian Modern Language Review 2017 73:4, 538-569.

Bird, S., Claxton R. A., & Percival, M. (2023) Seeing Speech: Using Praat to Visualize Hul’q’umi’num’ Sounds. Language Documentation and Conservation Vol. 17 (2023), pp. 297-324.

Bliss, H. Bird, S., Cooper P. A., Burton, S. & Gick, B (2018). Seeing Speech: Ultrasound-based Multimedia Resources for Pronunciation Learning in Indigenous Languages. Language Documentation and Conservation Vol. 12 (2018), pp. 315–338.

Chen, M, Lee, C., Fish, N., Miyashita M., & Randall, J (2024). Cloud-based Platform for Indigenous Language Sound Education. Proceedings of ComputEL-7.

Jordan Lachler is an Associate Professor of Endangered Language Sustainability in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Alberta. Since 2011, he has also served as the Director of the Canadian Indigenous Languages and Literacy Development Institute (CILLDI). His work focuses on language documentation, and supporting communities in revitalizing their languages. He has worked with a wide range of Indigenous communities in Canada, the United States, Ecuador, the Solomon Islands and elsewhere around the world.