Looking for speakers of small endangered languages - tell us words in your language!
$10-30 USD
Paid on delivery
Do you speak an "obscure," little-known language? If so, then we welcome you to participate in an exciting scientific project!
(NOTE: We are only looking for languages with NO DICTIONARIES. We are not looking for Indonesian, Javanese, Arabic, Tamil, Bengali, Yoruba, Igbo, or other major local languages that are taught in schools, have dictionaries, or are spoken by millions of people.)
No experience or qualifications needed other than a willingness to share words in your language and have them recorded!
Budget: Anywhere from $5-$50, depending on time and skills. In general, we pay about $5 / hour for participants' time.
How to apply: You can tell us what languages you speak. No need for a long cover letter.
Time: Could be range from less than an hour to a few days.
What you need to do: We will send you a vocabulary word list that is a few hundred words long. You will need to make a quality recording of the list by repeating each word in your language twice (using the software program Audacity). We will provide instructions on how to use Audacity.
***DETAILS***
I am a linguist (language scientist) looking for native speakers of any endangered language with approximately fewer than 100,000 speakers. Currently, I am building comprehensive lexical databases for as many world languages as possible, in collaboration with various other linguists and scientists from around the world.
Languages we are interested in: Note that we are not looking for local languages with many speakers such as Tamil, Konkani, Yoruba, or Cebuano, since those are all already very well documented. We are looking for the most "obscure" languages that few people have heard of. Example: If you are from Bangladesh, we are not looking for speakers of Sylheti, but rather "small" languages like Mru.
No work experience or educational qualifications other than native language fluency are needed. Please note that this project is paid for out of pocket, has limited funding, and can have a large number of participants.
Speakers will be asked to provide audio recordings of a few hundred basic vocabulary items (animals, plants, body parts, verbs, etc.) for poorly documented languages with few or no lexical resources. We will also ask you for a few dozen sentence examples and about the sounds of your language. Additionally, speakers will be asked about language demographics and sociolinguistics. Voice interviews for eliciting vocabulary usually take a few hours.
We would be particularly interested in speakers of local languages ("dialects") from these parts of the world, but are not solely limited to these locations.
- Africa: Nigeria, Cameroon, DRC, CAR, Chad, South Sudan, Sudan, Ethiopia, etc.
- East and Southeast Asia: Indonesia, Northeast India, Nepal, Bhutan, China, Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam, etc.
- Latin America: Brazil, Peru, Colombia, etc.
- Oceania: Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, etc.
Please let us know if you, your friends, or family members who speak small endangered languages may be able to participate.
Thank you for your interest!
Project ID: #19088363
About the project
Awarded to:
Hi, I am from Indonesian and speak Tolaki language from South-East Sulawesi. Would love to work with you. Please contact me for details.
48 freelancers are bidding on average $24 for this job
Dear Employer, I am a native Indonesian with B.A English Linguistics graduated from a state university in Indonesia with more than 13 years experiences in "English-Indonesian Translation Service" and the other way aro More
I'm a native Arabic speaker. I would like to participate. Please chat with me to discuss this as I would like to get more details and start working immediately.
Hi, I'm Muna from Indonesia. I am a native JAVANESE speaker, East Java dialect, Central Java dialect. Common Javanese language have 3 levels based on politeness: Ngoko, Kromo Madyo, Kromo Inggil. I can speak all More
Dears My native language is Macednoian, spoken in my country only. It is one of the harder and more complex languages to learn as it is written in Cyrillic and has plenty of different pronunciation rules. As an Engli More
Dear sir, Madam, Are you interested by Tamazight Moroccan local language? If so, I can help you about this d'objet. Looking forward to work with you. Thanks and regards.
I am very much interested in this project. I am a Dagao from Ghana. The Dagaabas are indigenous to the North Western part of Ghana and the some are found just across the border on the BURKINA Faso side. I believe my mo More
its Nepali, what i speak. i wud be very thankful if it can be use somewhere .its not hard but very intresring .
Hi, I am native hungarian. Might you interested?! Thank you very much If so! Please get in touch with me!
Hi, I am from Bangladesh. I speak Bengali. I think it will be an interesting work to do. I have knowledge about audacity. I will be honored to be a part of your project. Best regards.
Iam speaking chinese, english and arabic. 我学习汉语, 我考试过hsk3 和hsk4 我获得了去中国学习一年的奖学金, 可是我没去。 我翻译过很多文件, 消息和文章。 我会说英语, 汉语和阿拉伯语。 And i think i would be good for this project.
Greeting from Mongolia. Im native Mongolian(between China and Russia) person. I can do that. Im have clearly voice. I can understand and tell u with my native language . Please contact me! Im always be online. :)
Sir/Ma'am Hey I am from India and speak english and hindi languages Thanking You Kunal Verma
Hi! I am Indonesian and would love to help you on this project. I can speak both Indonesian and English fluently so no need to worry about my skill. I am also able to record my voice clearly to support your project. fe More
hi im from indonesia. i speak fluent javanese whether is javanese "krama" (use to talk to older people) and javanese "ngoko" (use to talk to friends and younger people). i also fluent in surabayan language that commonl More
