Multimedia

Multimedia, which integrates sound, text and images, together with facilitating users’ ability to usefully interact with the content, is the natural form of representation for language documentation. In 2005 we published the first version of Hearing Voices, an innovative multimedia app that was create to complement a public exhibition by sound artist John Wynne.

Khoi and San languages: Hearing Voices

Hearing Voices app

Hearing Voices, by John Wynne and Robert Munro, is a free interactive multimedia app that features the highly endangered Khoi and San languages of the Kalahari Desert in Botswana and Namibia. John Wynne recorded songs, speakers’ personal accounts and interviews in 2003 in collaboration with 8 speakers of 5 Khoi/San languages, visual artist Denise Hawrysio and linguist Andy Chebanne. The app features high quality recordings that capture the extraordinary sounds of these ‘click’ languages. It also presents detailed information about the speakers and their lifestyles, their languages, and language endangerment in general. For further information, and to download the app, see the Hearing Voices page.