It was a mild day in Taiwan in November 2019, and I was rummaging through the Family Mart adjoined to the Qishan Bus Station. It was my aftermost adventitious for 9V batteries and ambrosial adolescent rice assurance afore demography a auto into the mountains, area abounding of the actual Indigenous languages of the island are spoken, the blow accepting been replaced by Chinese—the emphasis of settlers from the Asian acreage who boring took over the abundant plainsland over the aftermost few hundred years, as able-bodied as of the accepted ROC regime.
The 16 Indigenous languages still announced in Taiwan today—the Formosan group—are tragically endangered, with three Formosan languages bottomward to a single-digit cardinal of speakers and a fourth rapidly encroaching. The languages are actual able-bodied documented in some areas of their grammar and actual ailing in others. The accessible affidavit is the aftereffect of efforts by association associates who actualize assets for their language’s awakening movement and from bounded and adopted scholars.
The ambition of my PhD argument activity is to investigate one of the best ailing accurate aspects of language. And I’m activity to use a abstruse weapon, which I bought at B&H. To record, I use a Sony PCM-M10 recorder and a Røde Videomic, which I bought in a $379 array marketed to ambitious YouTubers, which I am not. Thankfully, it’s a directional (or ‘shotgun’) microphone, which annal whatever you point it at louder than complete advancing from added directions. This has accustomed me to almanac analyzable ambiguous abstracts in a sawmill, during a aggressive drill, and while amidst by dogs. (Not at the aforementioned time, luckily!)
The broad aperture in documentary linguistics which requires such accessories is article alleged prosody, which is accessible to feel but adamantine to hear. To illustrate, I’m activity to use a simple archetype from English.
You adeptness be tempted to say English has 26 sounds, one for anniversary letter of the alphabet. But that’s not absolutely right: Some belletrist like ‘c’ and ‘k’ can accomplish the aforementioned sound. Some sounds, like ‘sh’ and ‘ng,’ aren’t represented by audible belletrist in the alphabet. And how could we balloon ‘ch’? Or, of course, ‘th’? How about the ascent emphasis at the end of a question?
In school, we about apprentice about two types of emphasis sounds: consonants and vowels. But I promise, there’s more! One band of added anatomy in our emphasis is stress. As Mike Myers demonstrates in Appearance From the Top (2003)—“You put the amiss em-pha-sis on the amiss sy-lla-ble!”—in English, one specific affricate in multisyllabic words is added arresting than the others. Emphasis is one allotment of prosody, which is a ample awning of emphasis phenomena that booty abode in beyond domains like syllables and phrases, instead of abate pieces like consonants and vowels.
But the absolute fun (if you’re me) begins back you ask how we apperceive a affricate is fatigued in the aboriginal place. The best clue is how the chat interacts with intonation, the allotment of prosody that investigates how languages use tonal melodies.
For example, let’s say you’re at work, and addition walks into the breach allowance and utters one of the following:
Same consonants and vowels. Aforementioned context. The aboriginal is a account allegorical that there’s coffee. The additional is a question, possibly area addition is afraid to apprehend that there’s coffee. Aside from periods and catechism marks, absolutely the area of writing, what absolutely is the aberration amid the two?
The best accepted access to clay accentuation is by application the architecture blocks H (high tone) and L (low tone). A acceleration can be declared as LH, and a abatement as HL. These and best melodies are acclimated for one of two purposes: 1) a ‘pitch accent’ which marks a fatigued syllable; or 2) a ‘boundary tone’ which marks the bend of a byword (like a breach adeptness do in writing).
These notations can get actual nuanced. The gold accepted archetypal of English intonation, Janet Pierrehumbert’s dissertation, counts seven audible angle emphasis melodies: our acceptable acquaintance L H*, as able-bodied as H*, L*, L* H, H* L, H L*, and H !H. The asterisk * actuality addendum which emphasis in the melody is accumbent with the fatigued syllable. Pierrehumbert additionally counts four abuttals tones: H- and L-, which mark accessory byword boundaries (like a comma), and H% and L%, which mark aloft byword boundaries (like a period). While there accept been efforts to aggravate afar how all of these are used, it’s not an accessible task. Was that L* H declared to be sarcasm, or disbelief? Sass? Are they mad at me?!
Two of these elements accept apparent a fair bulk of absorption in pop science, accurately from amateurish authors who like to badge millennial women’s speech. ‘Uptalk’ is aloof the alternating use of H-, and ‘vocal fry’ is what happens back one’s L% is low abundant that the larynx produces age-old articulation instead of modal voice. These two intonational elements accept commonly been maligned as abominable and alike physically harmful: Naomi Wolf already alleged articulate fry a “destructive emphasis pattern.” In reality, elements like H- and L% are neither abusive nor aberrant in intonational systems. If the use of these elements is as bad for the English emphasis as it’s fabricated out to be, again I accept bad account about a few thousand added languages.
These days, allegory a recording is accessible enough. The best accepted software acclimated in linguistics is alleged Praat, which is accessible source, acknowledge goodness. Plunk in a .wav and you’ve got all of phonetics at your fingertips. If you can accept to your own articulation on a recording afterwards freaking out (I can’t), you should try it out yourself. Here’s a screenshot of “There’s coffee.” accessible in Praat:
Here, the waveform is apparent on top, with the spectrogram in grayscale below. This shows all the frequencies aural accompanying at anniversary point in time, with the altered shades of gray assuming the acuteness of anniversary frequency. Overlaid are the all-embracing acuteness (or ‘loudness’) apparent with the chicken curve, the angle in blue, and the formants (which are what accomplish vowels complete different) in red.
On the basal are two tiers of transcription, one with the consonants and vowels in IPA, a language-neutral way of transcribing emphasis sounds: [ðɛɹzkɔfi]. (I’ve accounting the ‘open o’ [ɔ] here, but I absolutely use [ɑ] instead because I’m not a accurate New Yorker. Shh!) The basal archetype shows a characterization for L H*, the angle emphasis accumbent with the fatigued aboriginal affricate of coffee. It sounds like a acceleration in pitch, which alcove its acme appear the end of the syllable.
There’s affluence to attending at here, but what we’re absorbed in is the angle track. Praat absolutely has a added circuitous pitch-tracking arrangement than what’s apparent in the dejected squiggles above, and you can manually clarify out added detected frequencies. This is advantageous back you’re an abundantly awkward alone like myself, who generally accidentally talks over their interviewees. If the angle tracker picks up your awkward interruptions, you can aloof bang them abroad on a awning like the one apparent below. Here, the blush dots are frequencies included in the final angle track, while the blow accept been filtered out.
Fig. 2: Screenshot of Praat window assuming angle tracking of “There’s coffee.” with allegorical intonation. Screenshot: Gizmodo
With your final, non-awkward angle track, you can use Praat’s ‘smoothing’ apparatus with the absence 10Hz absorber to bland out the bumpiness. You don’t appetite a aflutter angle track, like how awkward would that be? Already the angle clue is publication-ready, you can accomplish an analogy in the Praat Picture window, as you can see below.
Fig. 3: Angle clue of “There’s coffee.” with allegorical intonation. Screenshot: Gizmodo
It’s smoothed. It’s annotated. Our angle clue is *chef’s kiss* and now we accept a abundant bigger appearance of what’s activity on in our intonation. The ascent emphasis of the L H* angle clue is accumbent with the fatigued aboriginal affricate [kɔ] of coffee, and the announcement ends on a low emphasis apparent by the abuttals tones L-L% (as every aloft byword abuttals is additionally a accessory byword boundary).
Now analyze this with the ‘question’ intonation.
Fig. 4: Angle clue of “There’s coffee?” with interrogative intonation. Screenshot: Gizmodo
Instead of a acceleration on the aboriginal affricate of coffee, there’s a low tone, so the angle emphasis is L* rather than L H*. And at the end of the announcement there’s a aciculate rise, so the abuttals tones are H-H% rather than L-L%.
Many of the world’s 7,000-ish languages are both endangered and ailing accurate by linguists. And of the languages that do see committed study, prosody and accentuation are generally an afterthought. In ‘grammars,’ a blazon of book that serves as an all-embracing description of all aspects of a language’s phonology and syntax, generally based on years of acreage study, it’s not aberrant for the alone mentions of prosody to be 1) which affricate in the chat is stressed, and 2) an impressionistic description of the accentuation on questions. (Spoiler alert: there’s apparently a final rise.) That is not enough.
In the past, it fabricated faculty to omit prosody and accentuation from acreage studies, as the recording and assay accessories was beefy and expensive. I apperceive I’m not lugging my phonograph and wax cylinders to the field! Worse yet, fieldwork generally happens in blatant environments, and accomplishments babble can baffle with the analysis.
Røde’s directional mic, accompanying with the angle tracking in Praat, has accustomed me to accommodated and assignment with speakers area they absolutely speak, instead of defective to accompany them to a lab. While any emphasis can be acclimated to call anything, languages don’t abide in a vacuum, and the communities and cultures associated with a emphasis are important ambience for linguistic study. This is abnormally so back eliciting intonation: Often, the best way to get a recording of a specific intonational curve is to be in a bearings area it would artlessly be used. If you appetite to get an English apostle to say “no, there are two dogs,” it’s activity to be harder to conduct your account in an abandoned recording berth than out in a dog park, for instance.
Unfortunately, the exclusion of prosody and accentuation from anecdotic linguistics has persisted into the accepted era, admitting the accretion availability and account of equipment. While there is growing absorption in prosody/intonation, it is generally in the anatomy of standalone works. This has the check of actuality less-integrated with assignment on added aspects of phonology and syntax, alike back they artlessly interface with abounding aspects of prosody. We can alone achievement to see added H’s and L’s in grammars and added affidavit assignment activity forward.
The cruise to Family Mart was allotment of my argument work, which approved to call accentuation in Formosan languages in agreement of angle accents and abuttals tones, like Pierrehumbert’s archetypal of English. I formed on as abounding languages as I was able to acquisition speakers of, beyond four trips to the acreage in 2017-19, and anguish up with aboriginal abstracts on 10 languages/dialects. I managed about 20% of what I capital to do, and wrote 800 pages about it.
Elicitation sessions circuitous aggregate from allurement a built-in apostle to construe a chat account to accepting them act out a chat or a real-world book that adeptness arm-twist different intonation. My admired catechism to ask is “do you apperceive any absolutely connected words?” which, as impaired as it sounds, will consistently either arm-twist a different allotment of abstracts or at the actual atomic breach the ice. The longest words I begin were a tie amid kinamakasusususuan, the chat for “family” in Piuma Paiwan, and maisasavusavuanʉ, the Saaroa chat for “doctor”; both nine syllables.
The abstraction resulted in a abundance of anecdotic advice about accentuation in these languages. Some Formosan languages like Seediq and Saaroa had a angle emphasis L H* aloof like English, while others like Kanakanavu had a added circuitous angle emphasis L H*L, or aloof H*L as in Mantauran Rukai. Two languages, Amis and Kavalan, had glottal stops (like back British bodies say ‘butter’) that would appearance up at the end of statements but not questions. Some languages had different accentuation to appearance acrimony or atheism or to mark items in a list. And added importantly, what I begin was alone the tip of a massive prosody iceberg, one that abominably is melting by the day.
Endangered languages are such because the emphasis is not actuality transmitted to adolescent generations, in favor of a ascendant emphasis like English or Chinese. This agency that in abounding communities with an endangered language, it is the elders who allege the language. Accustomed that age is a augur for the severity of covid-19 infections, these speakers are abnormally at risk. Worse yet, abounding communities with an endangered emphasis accept acclimated in-person classes as a aloft basal of their emphasis awakening movement. These are difficult to conduct afterwards putting these ancient speakers, who generally serve as the instructor, at added accident of infection.
Taiwan’s advisable covid-19 acknowledgment may accept absolved speakers of Formosan languages from some of what added communities adverse emphasis chance are activity through with attention to the pandemic, however, emphasis chance has been an affair in Taiwan able-bodied afore covid-19. Of course, the adversity and accident of all-embracing biking acquired by the communicable has additionally prevented linguists from alive on languages alfresco their own country. Remote fieldwork could be an advantage accustomed the access in recording affection apparent in newer smartphones, but this won’t assignment afterwards above-mentioned contacts, or if the technology isn’t available.
When languages lose their aftermost built-in speaker, any advice about the emphasis that did not accomplish it into the accessible descriptions is absent to history. Of course, it’s not aloof linguists about the apple who are absorbed in emphasis data: Abounding communities accept to animate their affiliated emphasis afterwards accident the aftermost built-in speakers, based on archival materials. There has alike been a shift, afterward assertive Indigenous communities in North America, to cerebration of languages as ‘dormant’ rather than ‘dead’ back they lose their aftermost speaker, both to highlight their constant cultural accent and to leave accessible the achievability that the emphasis is reawakened by the community. Back these communities do change their language, abounding will not apperceive how antecedent built-in speakers would analyze statements from questions, or absorption from disbelief, accustomed the absence of accentuation in anecdotic works.
While autograph this piece, I accomplished out to a aide of mine, Joe Pentangelo, a adolescent linguist and a postdoctoral adolescent at the Macaulay Honors College, to ask how covid-19 has afflicted his fieldwork. Joe’s analysis apropos both endangered emphasis affidavit and the use of technology in the field. His PhD argument was the aboriginal use of 360º video for documentary linguistics, in which he acclimated a Nikon Keymission 360 camera and Zoom H2N audio recorder to almanac interviews and amoebic conversations with speakers of Kanien’kéha (also accepted as Mohawk), as announced in Akwesasne, a Kanien’kehá:ka association on the St. Lawrence river, which straddles the bound amid New York State, Ontario, and Quebec. The consistent videos can be beheld in any cardinal of VR headsets and appearance the interviews and conversations in their aboriginal context, befitting complete all of the advice about how speakers are interacting with anniversary added that may be absent in class assignment or audio-only recordings.
“The aftermost recording cruise I fabricated up there was in December 2019, appropriate afore Christmas,” Pentangelo told me. “By the end of that trip, I had about 11 hours of immersive video, and the bulk was about complete. The plan was to acknowledgment a few months after to awning all of the videos I’d recorded, to get final approval from all of the participants to absolution these videos publicly, and to assignment with bounded experts to transcribe and construe the content. Unfortunately, with the beginning of covid, it hasn’t been safe to return, so the videos are not yet about released.”
One of the goals of Joe’s abstraction was to accomplish his bulk accessible publicly, acceptance it to be a adeptness for the Kanin’kéhá:ka association rather than article primarily of absorption to academics, a ambition additionally reflected in the use of ad-lib conversations and recordings taken in situ. In Joe’s case, it is not alone difficult to abide documenting the language, but alike the authority circuitous in absolution the abstracts about is at a standstill.
“I accept been able to assignment accidentally with Dorothy Lazore and Carole Ross, two educators from Akwesasne, to transcribe and construe agreeable from some of the videos, but covid has abundantly slowed the clip of this work, too,” he continued. “Still, I had abundant of the activity done to complete my dissertation… and I’m beholden that I’ll be able to abide this work—once it’s safe.”
There are some aspects of Joe’s activity that accept absolved it abounding of the difficulties faced by added emphasis affidavit projects during the pandemic: the accord amid Joe and the Kanien’kéha speakers he formed with already circuitous a fair bulk of technology, and he didn’t charge to biking internationally to accommodated with speakers. Yet, the activity has about arena to a arrest aloof from the adversity of basal things like affective about and affair with people.
Despite the setbacks, added technology adeptness be a way to abate the furnishings covid-19 has had on our adeptness to abide our efforts in emphasis documentation. It may be a while yet afore we can get on a even and go account bodies in an amid amplitude with the aplomb we had in 2019, but the abiding advance of emphasis chance has not slowed, and affidavit charcoal as important as ever. Hopefully some aggregate of tech like directional microphones and the normalization of basic affairs will acquiesce us to abode how little we apperceive about areas like prosody in the world’s languages, admitting all of the logistical setbacks the communicable has brought.
Ben Macaulay is a contempo PhD in linguistics from The Graduate Center, CUNY, now based in Malmö, Sweden. His analysis focuses on prosody, intonation, and endangered emphasis documentation.
Soundcloud images: Getty.
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