LING 421/521: The Language Learners’ Journey: Re-embodying Land, Language, and Ancestral Oral Traditions
This course addresses the basic foundations of language learning using oral language immersion principles, emphasizing communicative language immersion methodologies focusing on intergenerational language transmission and Indigenous ways of knowing. Participants will critically examine relevant issues for teaching Indigenous languages in community/immersion settings and participate in language immersion activity planning, implementation, and observation. The participants will engage in interactive assignments to experience strategies that support the oral language instructional approach. The first week’s sessions include informative presentations, discussions, and language planning activities. The final week will culminate in practicing the planned oral language activities and sharing our languages.
LING 424/524: Language Technology for Data Sovereignty
Students enrolled in this course will develop a language technology adoption plan that conforms to community values, goals and resources. In this course students will learn:
• what data sovereignty is, and how it relates to community language technology projects
• some basic principles that underlie current language technologies as they relate to issues of sustainability, cost, and data sovereignty.
• best practices for vetting commercial software adoptions ('check before you tech')
• best practices for vetting outside academics for possible collaboration around technology
• understanding the needs of IT units within communities around language technology adoption
• best practices for maintaining collaborations on technology over the medium and long term
This course is open to students at any level, with no prerequisites.
LING 427: Linguistics for Native American Communities
This course is designed for language keepers, teachers and learners who do not have a formal background in linguistics but wish to understand and utilize linguistic documentation (grammars, field notes, linguistics articles, etc.) and linguistics tools (documentation, analysis, software, etc.) to support their language work. The purpose of this course is to make linguistics more accessible to Indigenous communities engaged in language documentation, revitalization, maintenance, and reclamation. Students will learn the fundamentals of linguistics, how to understand and interpret linguistic documentation, and how to use and create materials in their own language work.
LING 445A/545A: Introduction to documenting North American Indian Sign Language
North American Indian/Indigenous Sign Language has a long history of usage among the tribes of Turtle Island (North America) since 2,000 to 6,000 B.C., depending on the locations of historical narrative documentation. A brief history of Rock Arts and how the signs appeared in them will be provided. The intergenerational transmission of North American Indian Sign Language from the past and its evolution into current sign language will be taught. The beginning of the class will focus on phonological documentation and analysis of the signs used in the Native communities. Students will learn sign language phonology by using 5 parameters: handshape, location, movement, palm orientation, and non-manual markers. Students will be able to learn how to use SooSL, a software from SIL, Inc. to document their tribal signs. This course aims to bring back tribal signs for use in language revitalization.
LING 392A/599: Writing about your language
How do you write about language? How do you effectively explain its complexity? In this course we will explore different methods for effectively communicating about different features of language. We will discuss writing about the sounds of language, the shape of words, and the grammar of a sentence. This discussion will be framed in terms of the different audiences, as our writing can take different shapes depending on who we're writing for. Students develop their knowledge and writing skills through readings, video lectures, and writing practice activities.
LING 497B/597B: Workshop in Linguistics
In this class students will learn the basics of Natural Language Processing, and how artificial intelligence can be used for Indigenous language documentation and revitalization. The class will include practical examples on how to make chatbots, speech recognition sytems and text predictors. It will also study how current artificial intelligence works, and what ethical and practical challenges it presents. Students don't need previous programming experience to take this class.