rinciples of language documentation.
During the trip, Iskarous and his students traveled to the city of Hsinchu, an hour and a half from Taipei by bus. Native speakers came down from their mountain villages to work with students at National Tsing Hua University three days a week. Each student selected a different aspect of Atayal culture to research in order to develop a diverse lexicon and linguistic record. As they gathered their data it was then parsed, labeled and entered into a shared Internet database.
“The students did an amazing job,” Iskarous said. “They took the documentation work extremely seriously and worked 5 to 6 hours a day, most days of the week. They worked closely with the native speakers, collecting conversations then transcribing a language they didn’t really know. They came up with translations with the knowledge they had gained in only six weeks about the language. We ended up with quite a bit of data.”
Because the native Atayal speakers spoke Mandarin but no English, the Atayal speakers translated their stories to Mandarin, then Mandarin speakers translated the stories to English for the students.
Program participants spoke of the graciousness of the Atayal people.
“I think it meant something to them to get to know people like us who were actively interested in their language,” Guekguezian said. “For me, it was just great to see the language so alive.”
Kim took advantage of her free time by traveling around the island as much as possible.
“I was really impressed by Taiwanese hospitality,” she said. “If you asked someone for directions they would walk with you for a mile until you found what you were looking for.”
On her last day in Hsinchu, Kim took a 21-mile bike ride along the coastline, which she said was especially memorable. She also explored the popular night markets found in Taiwan’s urban areas, which feature a huge selection of inexpensive clothing, jewelry and food.
Much more than a cache of esoteric research papers, participating students played a direct and important role in establishing an enduring record of Atayal that could potentially be utilized by scientists or even descendants of the speakers who may one day want to learn more about the language and culture.
“Getting the opportunity to do field work as an undergrad is very difficult if you don’t have much experience,” Kim said. “It was life-changing. I know that sounds extreme, but it just opened my eyes to so much.”
Iskarous was recently awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation in the amount of $973,963 over three years. His research will investigate the relation between the muscular movements involved in human language and the muscular movements of the octopus arm and a 1-millimeter worm. These latter two species have muscular systems related to those of the human tongue.
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