We are delighted to announce that a second tranche of papers in LDD volume 20 are now available online. These include three general research papers, one in our Language Contexts series, six Language Snapshots, a collection of Language Snapshots on the minority languages of the Tibetan region, and one book review. They cover a wide geographic range, including Asia, Pacific Islands, Australia, Africa, South America, North America, and Europe. The papers were written by a mixture of established and early career researchers (MA or PhD students, or post-doctoral fellows), some of whom are native speakers of the languages discussed. All the papers were double-blind reviewed by at least two reviewers (sometimes three) according to our usual procedures.
Here is a list of the new papers:
| Fa d’Ambô (Equatorial Guinea) – Language Snapshot by Ana Lívia Agostinho Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina | link |
| Akuzipik/Yupik (St. Lawrence Island, Alaska, USA; Chukotka, Russia) – Language Snapshot by Christopher Petuwaq Koonooka, Sylvia L.R. Schreiner, Giulia Masella Soldati, Lane Schwartz, Benjamin Hunt, Preston Haas, Emily Chen & Hyunji Hayley Park St. Lawrence Island Yupik, George Mason University, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | link |
| Nukuoro (Nukuoro Atoll, Pohnpei State, Federated States of Micronesia) – Language Snapshot by Emily Drummond & Johnny Rudolph University of California, Berkeley, Nukuoro Documentation Project | link |
| Reo Ra’ivavae (Ra’ivavae, Austral Archipelago, French-occupied Polynesia) – Language Snapshot by J. Drew Hancock-Teed & Mary Walworth Universität Bern – Institut für Sprachwissenschaft, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History – Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution | link |
| Sartang (West Kameng district, Arunachal Pradesh, India) – Language Contexts by Timotheus A. Bodt SOAS University of London | link |
| Tichurong (Nepal) – Language Snapshot by Jag Bahadur Budha, Maya Daurio & Mark Turin Independent Researcher, University of British Columbia | link |
| Lexical variation in Namaqualand: Some evidence from ethnobotany by Camilla Rose Christie Rhodes University | link |
| Gizey (Cameroon and Chad) – Language Snapshot by Guillaume Guitang Université libre de Bruxelles | link |
| Linguistic diversity in the Tibetan regions: a set of Language Snapshots by Yulha Lawa University of Oregon | link |
| Using a geospatial approach to document and analyse locational points in face-to-face conversation by Francesco Possemato, Joe Blythe, Caroline de Dear, Josua Dahmen, Rod Gardner & Lesley Stirling Macquarie University, University of Queensland, University of Melbourne | link |
| Review article: Stop, revival(istics), (linguistic) survival(istics): Zuckermann’s Revivalistics and Giacon’s Yaluu by Joshua Nash University of New England | link |
| COVID-19 and documentary linguistics: Some ways forward by Nicholas Williams, W. D. L. Silva, Laura McPherson, Jeff Good University of Potsdam, University of Arizona, Dartmouth College, University at Buffalo | link |
The research presented here includes new material on the structures, contexts, and uses of a wide range of endangered languages, including some never documented previously or only poorly known to date. Two papers present new methods for the documentation and analysis of languages using new technologies: GPS and GIS for conversational analysis, and social networking software for long-distance research in the context of Covid-19. All the papers are based on first-hand fieldwork with speakers, mostly in situ where they live, but also including those in diaspora settings, as for Nukuoro. In several cases the authors are native speakers of the languages concerned and draw upon their own experiences to complement their field research. The Language Snapshots and Language Context articles present up-to-date information on speaker numbers and vitality of the languages concerned; in several cases existing sources either are missing or are woefully dated and inaccurate.
Also of note is that Abstracts for these papers are written in English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Russian, Nepali, Tahitian, Chinese, and Tibetan.