Itelmen is a highly endangered language spoken natively by fewer than 20 individuals on the Kamchatka peninsula in Russia. The primary goal of this project is to compile multimedia (audio and video) support for a dictionary of the language. The project will record as much material as possible with the remaining speakers, supplementing small existing collections, and making annotated audio and video recordings available for posterity (both for scholars and for community members) with digital archives in both Russia and the U.S. A component of the project involves the development of software for language archiving and analysis.
Itelmen has many rare typological features, which make these recordings of interest to linguistic scholarship, both narrowly (shedding light on the structure and history of the Chukotko-Kamchatkan language family), and broadly, to the field of linguistics as a whole (especially in the areas of morphology, phonology and typology), as well as related areas such as linguistic anthropology. The project includes training of graduate students in the US and in the field, as well as the training of a member of the Itelmen community in techniques of language documentation and revitalization.
