Understanding Indonesian: developing a machine-usable grammar, dictionary and corpus. Australia's relationship with Indonesia is of great significance. The need for good relationships founded on appreciation of the range of societies and views in modern Indonesia is widely acknowledged. A better knowledge of the languages is essential for this, and so are fast, efficient information gathering systems for processing multilingual sources (including Indonesian text), that can analyse large volumes ....Understanding Indonesian: developing a machine-usable grammar, dictionary and corpus. Australia's relationship with Indonesia is of great significance. The need for good relationships founded on appreciation of the range of societies and views in modern Indonesia is widely acknowledged. A better knowledge of the languages is essential for this, and so are fast, efficient information gathering systems for processing multilingual sources (including Indonesian text), that can analyse large volumes of text. The skills to build such systems exist internationally. Through collaboration with established international teams, we plan to transfer cutting-edge skills in the development of machine-useable grammars to Australian researchers, and to create the language resources essential for understanding Indonesian.Read moreRead less
Proto Oceanic Language, culture and environment: Foundations of the Austronesian settlement of the Pacific. The project aims to reconstruct the lexicon of Proto Oceanic. Proto Oceanic was ancestral to most Austronesian languages of Melanesia, Polynesia and Micronesia. By paying attention to the semantics of terminologies, we expect to learn much about the culture, society and cosmology of Proto Oceanic speakers and their conception of and adaptation to the natural environment. The results will ....Proto Oceanic Language, culture and environment: Foundations of the Austronesian settlement of the Pacific. The project aims to reconstruct the lexicon of Proto Oceanic. Proto Oceanic was ancestral to most Austronesian languages of Melanesia, Polynesia and Micronesia. By paying attention to the semantics of terminologies, we expect to learn much about the culture, society and cosmology of Proto Oceanic speakers and their conception of and adaptation to the natural environment. The results will be presented in Volumes 3-5 of a five-volume series. Volume 1 was published in 1998; volume 2 is almost complete. This project will support fundamental research for volumes 3 (flora and fauna), 4 (people and society) and 5 (indices, etc).
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New languages seen with new eyes: Evidence for the emergence of grammar in signed languages using new methodologies and technologies. This project will ensure that the education of signing deaf children and the scientific study of human language are based on descriptions of sign language vocabulary and grammar that are supported by empirical evidence from representative samples of naturalistic language. The knowledge is essential for developing assessment and teaching tools for deaf children, fo ....New languages seen with new eyes: Evidence for the emergence of grammar in signed languages using new methodologies and technologies. This project will ensure that the education of signing deaf children and the scientific study of human language are based on descriptions of sign language vocabulary and grammar that are supported by empirical evidence from representative samples of naturalistic language. The knowledge is essential for developing assessment and teaching tools for deaf children, for improving the training of sign language interpreters, and for understanding the results of research into human cognition and the processing of language-spoken, written or signed-in the brain. The internet accessible digital video corpus will be an important cultural archive, educational resource and scientific dataset for the on-going research.Read moreRead less
Bininj Gunwok Lexicography Project. This project will make a contribution to Aboriginal language maintenance and documentation via lexicography. Only about 20 of the original 200 or so Aboriginal languages remain viable. Bininj Gunwok is one of these languages. Very few dictionaries exist for Australian languages and for those languages such as Bininj Gunwok which linguists class as 'non-Pama-Nyungan', only a handful of dictionaries are available. The resulting Bininj Gunwok dictionary and cultu ....Bininj Gunwok Lexicography Project. This project will make a contribution to Aboriginal language maintenance and documentation via lexicography. Only about 20 of the original 200 or so Aboriginal languages remain viable. Bininj Gunwok is one of these languages. Very few dictionaries exist for Australian languages and for those languages such as Bininj Gunwok which linguists class as 'non-Pama-Nyungan', only a handful of dictionaries are available. The resulting Bininj Gunwok dictionary and cultural encyclopaedia will have applications for education, Aboriginal health, community development, land management and environmental science in Kakadu National Park and western Arnhem Land as well as applications for cross-cultural communication.Read moreRead less
The languages of Minahasa: description, documentation, and support. This project works to document and preserve several endangered languages of Minahasa, one of the few Christian areas of Indonesia. Most of the languages of this area, as well as their distinctive ethnic cultures, are under pressure from mainstream Indonesian language and culture and will vanish within a generation if nothing is done.
A multifaceted study of Tangsa: a network of linguistic varieties in North East India. Our world's linguistic and cultural heritage, the product of human evolution, is being lost rapidly due to globalisation and modernisation. This project will record the linguistic diversity of the Tangsa people of North East India, thereby increasing our knowledge of an important regional neighbour and of our human society and history.