California Language Archive

10/09/2026

In collaboration with Ángel Bittancourt Serra and another anonymous transcriber, Berkeley linguistics alum Amalia Skilton (PhD 2019), now a professor at The University of Edinburgh, has accessioned transcriptions of a whopping 35 hours of caregiver-child interactions and other conversations in Ticuna, a language isolate of Peru, representing seven years of work by this team: http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.7297/X2F769QD. The transcriptions can be found in their own items with relations to items containing corresponding audiovisual files, with detailed descriptions of the contents of the files and their relationships among each other (see especially items 2018-19.085 through 2018-19.123, 2018-19.158 through 2018-19.191, and 2018-19.213 through 2018-19.223). Items 2018-19.038 and 2018-19.134 contain guides to the orthography and transcription practices, respectively. This image is from catalog item 2018-19.056, a recording made in 2019.

10/09/2026

Berkeley linguists Bernat Bardagil (postdoc 2018-2020), Becky Jarvis (PhD 2025), Kelsey Neely (PhD 2019), and CLA manager Zachary O'Hagan (pictured left to right) are attending Language Documentation and Archiving in Berlin this week. The conference is hosted by ELAR Archive and the Pacific and Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures at Humboldt University.

02/09/2026

We've accessioned a small collection, the Roderick Jacobs Collection of Cupeño Language Materials: http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.7297/X2251HQW. The new collection combines original field notes and other miscellaneous papers donated by Jacobs's wife in 2021 with two items previously held by the CLA. Jacobs (1934-2018) worked from the late 1960s with Cupeño elder Roscinda Nolasquez (1892-1987), receiving a PhD in Linguistics at UC San Diego in 1972 with a dissertation titled "Syntactic Change: A Cupan (Uto-Aztecan) Case Study." Mrs. Nolasquez co-authored multiple books including "Mulu'wetam: The First People," with anthropologist Jane Hill in 1973. The collection is not yet digitized, but here is an image from catalog item 2026-03.001.

28/08/2026

The CLA represents only some of the archival work done in the Berkeley linguistics department. Professor Isaac Bleaman is Director of the Corpus of Spoken Yiddish in Europe, which brings together video interviews with Yiddish-speaking Holocaust survivors from the USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive and "high-quality transcripts, maps, and other digital resources for researchers, students, educators, and members of the public." Ronald Sprouse, IT specialist for the CLA, also provides technical support.

A digital language archive sourced from Holocaust survivor testimonies

27/08/2026

We've accessioned a small new collection of materials from the 1990-1991 Berkeley graduate field methods course on Chalcatongo de Hidalgo Mixtec: http://cla.berkeley.edu/collection/11435. The language consultant was Luciano Cortés Nicolás and the instructor was Leanne Hinton, a page of whose notes are pictured here (from item 2026-16.012)

26/08/2026

Thanks to the cataloging of CLA volunteer Seb Clendenning-Jiménez, today we accession the Trevor Allin Collection of Resígaro Language Materials, consisting of original sound recordings, phonological and grammatical notes, correspondence (some in Resígaro), and photographs related to Dr. Allin's study of this Arawakan language in collaboration with speaker Pablo Andrade Ocagane: http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.7297/X2Q52P52. Their efforts were carried out under the auspices of the Summer Institute of Linguistics in Peru in 1971 and 1972, and resulted in Dr. Allin's doctoral dissertation, "A Grammar of Resígaro," in 1976 (University of St Andrews, Scotland). The collection also includes extensive recordings of stories in Resígaro by Mr. Andrade's sister Adelina (and others by their sister Rosa and mother, Alicia Ocagane), together with one by her in Ocaina (a Witotoan langauge), and a word list by Miguel Soria in Bora (Boran). These are the earliest known recordings of Resígaro and the only known recordings of Alicia and Adelina. You can listen to one of Adelina's stories directly on SoundCloud here: https://soundcloud.com/user-881486930/story-of-the-man-who-turned.

The Andrade Ocagane family was one of the last to use Resígaro as a primary language of the home. Documentation of the langauge continues with Mr. Andrade today, in collaboration with Berkeley linguistics faculty member Lev Michael and CLA manager Zachary O'Hagan. This collection was donated by Dr. Allin in May of this year. The tapes were digitized by the Berkeley Language Center. Pictured here are Allin (left) and Andrade in Yarinacocha in 1972 (from catalog item 2026-09.004.010).

14/08/2026

Berkeley linguistics faculty member Line Mikkelsen has made a new accession of more than 100 items to the collection Kalaallisut Language Materials, developed collaboratively over several years with Kalaallisut speakers Grethe Schmidt, Pia Svendsen, and Ellen Thrane based in Greenland and Denmark (see items 2022-13.107 to 2022-13.247 here: http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.7297/X2B56J08). The collection consists of video recordings of elicitation sessions recorded on Zoom, as in the example in this image.

13/08/2026

We've begun digitizing Kenneth Hill's file slips documenting Serrano, a Uto-Aztecan language of southern California! The first box alone contains 2,165 slips and dividers to scan, now available here: http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.7297/X2280735 (this image from HillK.003.001).

05/08/2026

Today we accession a new collection of materials from the 2002-2003 Berkeley linguistics graduate field methods course on Tangkhul Naga, a Tibeto-Burman language of India: http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.7297/X29P3151. The language consultant was Khan Lolly and the instructor was Larry Hyman. The collection includes field notes, lecture notes, handouts, student assignments including some final papers, and miscellaneous course materials (e.g., syllabus, correspondence). Pictured here is a page of Prof. Hyman's notes from the fall semester (catalog item 2025-10.005).

04/08/2026

Today we accession 52 items to the Samuel Alfred Barrett Papers, including 19 of his original notebooks related to Eastern Pomo language and culture of Clear Lake, California: http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.7297/X2X63JTH. The remainder consists primarily of photocopies of papers held by The Bancroft Library, of documents related to the American Indian Film Project, index cards of catalogs and Eastern Pomo linguistic and cultural information, and correspondence. There are detailed descriptions of the notebooks, and carton- and folder-level information for corresponding Bancroft materials. All available names, including those of numerous Pomo elders, have been included in the descriptive metadata. This accession comes from the estate of linguist Sally McLendon. It's not yet digitized, but please write to us with questions at [email protected]. Pictured here is an image of the first page of Barrett.024.