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ARCHIVES |
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| Introduction Meso-American Collection Eric P. Hamp's Contributions Other Languages and Materials Access to Archives  |
The Language
Laboratories and Archives (LLA) hold an
extensive
collection of printed and mechanically recorded materials in some 180
languages and dialects "from Abaza to Zulu". Recording media range from
Edison cylinders and needle-cut aluminum discs to motion-picture film
and digital audio tape. Subject matter runs from psychological
interviews to commercial language courses to field-recordings collected
for linguistic analysis. One day the LLA hopes to put many of these
materials on-line, but unresolved questions of copyright and limited
resources militate against the realization of this objective anytime
soon. (Issues regarding access to the archives are discussed at the end
of this section.) What is or is not included in the LLA collection reflects the pedagogical and scholarly interests of language instructors and linguistic researchers who have worked at the University of Chicago over the past eighty years. In terms of sheer number of titles the LLA's holdings of books, audio tapes and phonograph records in French and Spanish constitute the largest collections. Also extensive are the holdings in Arabic, Chinese, German, Japanese, Korean and Russian. Most of these items consist of language courses prepared at the University or purchased from commercial sources. Back to Top The archives achieve their true distinction in the great number and variety of field recordings donated to the Labs over the past four decades. In particular, the LLA's collection of Meso-American materials stands out. From the 1930s, when the needle-cut aluminum disc represented the state of the art in audio recording, come hundreds of discs contributed in the main by the University of Chicago linguist, Manuel Andrade. In his travels to Mexico and Guatemala he obtained recordings in the Aguacatec, Huastec, Kanjobal, Mam, Quekchí, Quiché, Tonkawa, Yucatec Maya and Zapotec languages. By the 1960s the recording art had advanced to the level of the portable reel-to-reel tape recorder. From this period emerges the extensive dialect survey of the Tzeltal and Tzotzil languages carried out by Norman A. McQuown (Professor Emeritus, Departments of Linguistics and Anthropology) and his colleagues. Subsequently, graduate students working under the supervision of Prof. McQuown brought back recordings in Chol, Ixil, Nahuatl ("Aztec"), Pocomam and Tojolabal. Paul Friedrich (Professor Emeritus, Departments of Anthropology and Linguistics) has also given the LLA some of his recordings in the Tarascan language. Back to Top An especially prolific contributor to the archives has been Eric P. Hamp (Robert Maynard Hutchins Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus, Departments of Linguistics, Slavic Languages and Literatures, Psychology (Cognition and Communication) and the Committee on the Ancient Mediterranean World). He has greatly enriched the collection with donations in some sixteen languages. As an Indo-Europeanist, Prof. Hamp has concentrated his scholarly research on various Albanian dialects as well as a number of Celtic languages--Breton, Welsh, Irish Gaelic and Scots Gaelic. But, in his travels around the world, he has also collected samples of widely divergent languages from Ainu and Lapp to Vlach and Lower Sorbian. In the academic year 1989-90, Prof. Hamp--on the verge of retirement--gave his last course on the reconstruction of Indo-European. Barbara Need, now Manager of the Social Science site of the LLA, recorded each lecture on audiocassette. The resulting set of tapes, too, remains with the LLA for the use of future scholars. Back to Top Outside the Meso-American area other languages of the Americas are represented in the archives, sometimes by no more than a single audiocassette or phonograph record. These include: Strong interest in South Asian studies during the 1960s and '70s has also left a substantial mark in the archives. Course materials in South Asian languages were recorded in the LLA studio during those years. Among such courses are: Assamese, Bengali, Hindi, Malayalam, Marathi, Tamil and Urdu. Tapes and books from other universities have also contributed to this collection--in Telugu, Kannada, Nepali and Oriya. One linguist, Norman H. Zide (Professor Emeritus in the Departments of Linguistics and of South Asian Languages and Civilizations) is donating his personal collection of field recordings in the Munda languages of India (such as Gutob).Apache, Ethiopia and Sub-Saharan African also find representation in the archives. Holdings range from field recordings to courses prepared by the Foreign Service Institute in such languages as Amharic, Bolum, Chewa, Ewe, Fula, Galla, Hausa, Kpelle, Kru, Masai, Mende, Swahili, Tigrinya and Zulu. Languages, however, are not the only subjects found in the collection. In the 1960s, for example, Prof. McQuown explored the fields of kinesics ("body language") and interview analysis, which are recalled in the form of filmed and tape-recorded interviews. Various scholarly conferences held around that time have also yielded recorded lectures on such topics as anthropology and syntax. Back to Top In principle, anyone associated with the University and possessing the proper identification has access to most of the materials stored in the archives. Except in those cases in which copyright permits the making of copies, all materials must be used on the premises at the SS4 site of the LLA. Furthermore, access to the archives may also be restricted for the following reasons: 1) Before they can be used, certain materials (such as phonograph records) may have to be copied onto a more accessible (and less fragile) medium such as audiocassettes. Limitations on staff time may delay such dubbing.Persons outside the University may request copies of a few select items (such as Mayan language recordings) for their personal use. See the Products page for more information. Prepared by Joseph J. Toth, September 2000 Back to Top |
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