AILLA is a joint project of the Departments of Anthropology and Linguistics, and the Digital Library Services Division of the General Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin. Linguistic anthropologist Dr Joel Sherzer is project director: co‐investigator is Dr Anthony C. Woodbury in the Linguistics Department. AILLA receives funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Science Foundation.
A challenge for modern societies is whether the myriad languages of their indigenous groups can be preserved and taught to future generations. Hundreds of world languages – unique expressions of cultural and intellectual heritage – risk extinction as their speakers interact more closely with dominant societies, as elderly speakers die, and as children fail to learn the languages. AILLA's mission is “to preserve recordings made in the indigenous languages of Latin America safely and permanently”. Another mission is to house the recordings in standard digital formats that use commonly available programmes to display or play the files. AILLA intends to serve speakers and scholars by such means as allowing the publication of literary works and educational materials (Welcome page). AILLA is an archive for indigenous languages of Mexico and Central and South America. The project has no religious or military affiliation or sponsorship, and no political agenda. Data resources currently include over 400 sets of files deposited by researchers and indigenous persons. The files include recordings and texts in or about the languages, in many expressive types – songs, ceremonies, oratory, narratives, and conversations. Some texts are translated into Spanish, Portuguese or English. Secondary materials such as ethnographies, research notes, dictionaries, and grammars, and teaching materials may also be available for a given language. The programme coordinator reports that people in indigenous communities are using the archives (Johnson, 2004).
In keeping with AILLA's concern for the rights of indigenous people to their own cultural property, there are links to sources on intellectual property rights and a series of legal disclaimers stating that AILLA will make public the name of anyone who “violates the conditions of use of archive resources” (see www.ailla.utexas.org/site/disclaimer.html). Extensive background information on Mesoamerican and South American languages is available (see www.ailla.utexas.org/site/lg_info.html). It includes basic information about language as well as the issues indigenous groups face in maintaining their form of speaking, and a geographic chart. Extensive information about the project appears at the homepage, which offers its text in English or Spanish. Use of the site is free. Metadata (descriptive cataloguing information) can be searched by the public. However, registration is required to use the actual text resources. Four progressive levels of restricted access rights are set by the depositor (details appear at www.ailla.utexas.org/site/gas.html).
Users must ask for permission before producing any derivative work such as a transcription, translation, creative production, analysis, textbook, etc. Citation guidelines are provided (see www.ailla.utexas.org/site/citation.html). Restricting access seeks to ensure that materials are used properly and respectfully, since many of them are unique records of endangered, or even extinct, languages. Depositors are welcome to submit their files for archiving; and they may be researchers or speakers of a regional indigenous language. The project welcomes donations from scholars or speakers of a language, but does not purchase materials. A discussion of whether or not the depositor should choose to make the files public can be found at the Information Depositors section (see www.ailla.utexas.org/site/dep_info.html).
The number of files on a given language currently ranges from one ceremonial conversation in Achuar, an Ecuadorian language, to nearly 60 files featuring narratives, word lists, and a dissertation on Zoque in Oaxaca and Chiapas, Mexico. The full list of available texts can be seen at www.ailla.utexas.org/search/browse.html. The site index is easy to navigate – the search capability includes only the archives. A particularly useful feature is the listing of links to sites such as language archives on North America native languages, and to indigenous organizations developing language projects, including the new umbrella group, DELAMAN (Digital Endangered Languages and Musics Archive Network; see www.delaman.org). Help files are linked from the index on any page. Languages of a particular country can also be selected via a clickable map.
Technical information on the creation, maintenance, and documentation of the files is found at the Technology link (see www.ailla.utexas.org/site/tech_specs.html). AILLA converts the texts or oral presentations to widely available digital formats and also preserves the data in secure files, backed up regularly and stored off site. The programme is ongoing: the coordinator and research assistants add to the resources by sorting, cataloguing, digitizing, testing and archiving the files submitted. The general text of the site was updated about December 2003. In general, the project attempts to use widely available, free or inexpensive software, in order to keep the web site accessible for those with slow internet connections or with disabilities, following guidelines proposed by the Worldwide Web Consortium. AILLA uses the relational database MySQL, and web interfaces have been coded using PHP. The Digital Library Services Division of the University of Texas at Austin maintains the host servers. The project makes every effort to make the files available in formats that can be played with readily available software. Viewing documents requires Adobe Acrobat. Playing the actual language sound files (MP3 files or .wav files) including Windows Media Player or Quicktime (see www.ailla.utexas.org/site/faq.html).
Overall, this reviewer highly recommends the AILLA database. It is of most interest to students of Latin American indigenous languages, including both active scholars and students, but also to anyone interested in the richness and complexity of world languages and their preservation. This project can serve as a model for language archiving.
