Interdisciplinary approaches to comparative ethnoentomology and linguistics in endangered language communities

The intrusion of dominant societies on Indigenous communities can have negative impacts on traditional cultures including a potential loss of languages and altered ecosystems. In some communities, recent generations have lost much of the knowledge of natural history (particularly local flora and fauna) that their ancestors possessed. The younger members of these communities are no longer able to speak authoritatively on these topics and each year fewer and fewer elders remain who can do so.

This project assembles an extensive international, multidisciplinary, and multiethnic team to document the nomenclature, classification, and symbolic and economic use of local fauna. This is accomplished through the collection and long-term preservation of physical specimens, the recording of extensive high quality digital audio about these collections, audio transcription and translation, and the use of macro photography to create an image bank that is used to create illustrated field guides and an online exhibit.

The project results are disseminated in multiple venues, including a physical and virtual museum exhibit.

The research team consists of linguists, anthropologists, biologists, computer scientists, and community speakers from communities speaking four distinct languages. Each group plays a key role in the project and benefits from the results. As each specimen is collected by a team comprising a biologist and multiple native speakers, it is stored in laboratory grade ethanol to ensure excellent preservation of tissue for sequencing the CO1 mitochondrial gene.

The specimens are mounted and photographed with a macro lense (frontal, dorsal, lateral). Native language field recordings are made at the time of collection where speakers share their knowledge of the collected arthropod specimen. This project continues collaboration on computer-assisted language documentation.

The use of computational technologies demonstrates their utility in producing large. endangered language corpora. Finally, this project increases knowledge of a seldom studied semantic domain: the nomenclature, classification, and use of arthropods in Indigenous communities. Unlike other projects, this one is comparative.

It provides data from four distinct Indigenous language communities that illuminate historical patterns of contact and shared uses and beliefs.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.