Capturing Chaos: Rendering Handwritten Language Documents

dc.contributor.author Henderson, John
dc.date.accessioned 2008-12-29T07:49:53Z
dc.date.available 2008-12-29T07:49:53Z
dc.date.issued 2008-12
dc.description.abstract This paper demonstrates how the nature of a source language document, and the broad goals set for the usability of the content, can direct the process of creating digital language documentation from that source. Gerhardt Laves’s handwritten 1931 field notes on Noongar language and culture of southwestern Australia were retranscribed using an XML markup scheme and processed in various ways using XSLT. The central goals were to produce usable resources for community language activities and for linguistic and other scholarly analysis. A specific requirement for a rough facsimile representation, in recognizing that some of the graphic form of the notes was content that should be represented in the markup, contributed significantly to the specification of the markup scheme. Consultation with the Noongar community led to the recognition of Noongar families’ rights in the materials and the recognition of culturally sensitive content, which together led to a requirement for multiple versions with varying content. The general nature of these handwritten notes also raises important issues of reliability and attribution that must be handled in the markup scheme.
dc.description.sponsorship National Foreign Language Resource Center
dc.identifier.citation Henderson, John. 2008. Capturing chaos: Rendering handwritten language documents. Language Documentation & Conservation 2(2):212–243.
dc.identifier.issn 1934-5275
dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/10125/4347
dc.language.iso eng
dc.publisher University of Hawai'i Press
dc.subject handwriting
dc.subject Gerhardt Laves
dc.subject Noongar
dc.subject southwestern Australia
dc.subject XML
dc.subject XSLT
dc.title Capturing Chaos: Rendering Handwritten Language Documents
dc.type Article
dc.type.dcmi Text
prism.endingpage 243
prism.number 2
prism.publicationname Language Documentation & Conservation
prism.startingpage 212
prism.volume 2
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