Integrated Cloud-based System for Endangered Language Documentation and Application

Abstract

Nearly half of the world languages are considered endangered and need to be documented, analyzed, and revitalized. However, existing linguistics tools lack the accessibility to effectively analyze languages such as Blackfoot in which relative pitch movement is significant, e.g., words with the same sound sequence but convey different meanings when changing in pitches. To address this issue, we present a novel form of audio analysis with perceptual scale, and develop a consolidated and interactive toolset called MeTILDA (Melodic Transcription in Language Documentation and Analysis) to effectively capture perceived changes in pitch movement and to host other existing desktop-based linguistic tools on the cloud to enable collaboration, data-sharing, and data reuse among multiple linguistic tools.