Citizen linguists and community language activists undertaking documentation projects often ask us: what words and phrases should we document in endangered languages? Is there a list available to use as prompts? How do we approach preserving a previously undocumented language if there are no existing wordlists or recordings to draw from?
Knowing where to start is very important. In an effort to help language activists who need a solid starting point from which to start their documentation process, we are making our Master Elicitation List available for public use by anyone who needs it. This is a living list that we will continue to update over time:
Download it here, either in Excel or PDF format:
The Master Elicitation List contains:
- Alphabetical Vocabulary List (in English): 4932 entries
- Grammatical Phrases: 1959 entries
- Additional short wordlists for: body parts, natural phenomena, animals, kinterms and other human relationships, numerals, cultural items or constructs, colors, pronouns, adverbials, adjectives, verbs and others.
We created these materials as mere guideposts for language documentation. It is available as part of The Language Sustainability Toolkit (a collaborative project with Wikitongues). We encourage researchers and activists to expand the list as needed, and build upon them for their own unique projects. It is a jumping-off point from which one can begin to elicit a lot of general lexical and grammatical content.
Using the English language as a basis for prompts comes with its own challenges. English may not capture the subtleties of the language being documented. We recommend not just relying on this list, but also using additional documentation approaches such as elicitation of items in culturally relevant photos as well as capturing oral histories, natural conversations and dialogs between native speakers (where possible).
NOTE: The Master Elicitation List was adapted from the Munda Elicitation List that is being used in documenting tribal Munda languages spoken in India. The list contains some cultural references and lexical items that might not be relevant for other parts of the world. Feel free to edit as needed.
Master Elicitation List Acknowledgments:
Gregory D. S. Anderson
K. David Harrison
Opino Gomango
Bikram Jora
Luke Horo
Anna Luisa Daigneault
Thanks to Living Tongues intern Cassidy Parong for assistance with editing and formatting of the list.