Welcome to the Archive of the Aché Language !
Pasar a la versión española ...
This archive is currently under construction. It already contains a set of over 250 audio- and video-recordings
in the Aché language, many of them transcribed and translated, carried
out under the auspices of the Aché Documentation Project (ADOP), part
of the DOBES-program. Further material is in preparation.
In addition, the archive will contain recordings, written materials,
linguistic descriptions, ethnographic accounts, and photographs that
have been donated by other people who are or have been working with the
Aché. A bibliography of published materials about the Aché will also be
included.
The documentation project
The Aché Documentation Project (ADOP) started in November 2008 as part of the
DOBES endangered languages program.
Its purpose is the extensive documentation of the Aché language. The project is designed to
systematically record, describe, and archive language and cultural data and to investigate it from ethnolinguistic
and anthropological points of view. The Aché language is in urgent need of documentation as the number of speakers
is very small, intergenerational transmission is interrupted, and the socio-cultural conditions continue to rapidly
change. For more information about the Aché and the Aché language, consult the
project website.
The documentation team consists of linguist Eva-Maria Rößler (Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Brazil),
linguistic anthropologist Jan David Hauck (University of California, Los Angeles), and
social anthropologist Warren Thompson (University of New Mexico). The project is hosted at the
Institut für vergleichende Sprachwissenschaft of the Johann Wolfgang Goethe Universität of Frankfurt
under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Jost Gippert and Dr. Sebastian Drude.
The structure of the archive and how to use it
The data in the Aché corpus is accessible in the IMDI-Browser in two ways: through the browse
panel in the left frame or through a metadata search. The corpus is divided into two substantive
parts:
Documentation,
containing primary materials in the Aché language, and
Studies, containing studies about the Aché and their language. The materials are organized
by sessions, which are bundles of audio- and/or video-recordings with their respective annotations
(i.e., transcriptions and translations of recordings), written material, or photographs.
The directory tree in the browse panel represents the sessions with the bundle-icon
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Each session contains information about the corresponding resource files. This information is called metadata.
A click on the bundle-icon reveals the metadata in the right frame. For more information you can download
Quick Guides to
archive browsing
and to the metadata search, or
alternatively the manual of the IMDI-browser.
Each session of the Aché corpus can be accessed in the corpus structure through multiple branches of the directory tree.
The three main branches of the Documentation are:
- Varieties:
- the data is organized according to the subgroup/dialect of the speaker.
- Communities:
- the data is organized according to the community where it was recorded.
- The 'Lifeworld':
- the data is organized according to Aché social experience and practice.
Each of these branches reflects a particular use
that we have envisioned for the archive. The first branch,
classification according to variety,
refers to the particular subgroup and dialect of the speaker. The Aché
were traditionally hunter-gatherers, living in small nomadic foraging
bands in the Atlantic coastal forests of Eastern Paraguay. Groups of
allied, endogamous bands we have designated subgroups. Because these
subgroups did not have peaceful relationships with each other, there
was little linguistic or cultural transmission between them, thus
forming the central linguistic and cultural divisions within Aché
society.
We have also chosen to group sessions by the communities
in which they were recorded. Again, this category corresponds to a
relevant historical reality. Rapid deforestation, contact-related
disease, and attacks from Paraguayan colonists forced most subgroups
into reservations during the 1960s and 70s. Today most Aché live in six
communities spread over Eastern Paraguay. Even though dialect and
important cultural practices differ on the basis of subgroup, these
differences have somewhat “flattened” by the settling of multiple
subgroups within a single community. We have organized the corpus
structure to reflect this historical linguistic and socio-political
change. We suspect that the Aché themselves will find classification by
community as the most useful to search for sessions, given that as time
goes on and more and more people from different subgroups intermarry,
fewer younger people will remember what subgroup their ancestors came
from.
The third branch of documentation is classification by what we call the 'lifeworld,'
the meaningful lived world of everyday life. Here we are attempting to
provide, as much as we are able, a representative enumeration of
central socio-cultural phenomena. This branch allows anthropologists to
easily compare the individual variations of ritual song and myth, for
example, as well as giving visitors to the archive a general feel for
Aché meaning and practice.
Access, authorship, and copyrights
The access to the metadata (the information about the deposited resources) is open.
However, the access to most of the resources themselves, i.e., the recordings and annotations, picture and written material,
is restricted. If you are interested in viewing or downloading material of the Aché archive, you will have to
register and sign the
DOBES Code of Conduct.
You can request access to a resource by filling out the
usage request form. When access is granted you will have to sign a
usage declaration. Please also consult the
Access instructions and read the
Ethical and legal documents.
Every request to access data will be considered. Please feel free to contact the ADOP team for further information.
The authors of the primary data of the recordings in the archive are the respective speakers or performers,
as specified in the metadata for each session. The material from the documentation project has been compiled
by the ADOP team (Rößler, Hauck, and Thompson). In accordance with the
DOBES Code of Conduct
no one is allowed to use the recorded and analyzed data for commercial purposes without
permission from the speech community. It is the latter that decides all aspects involved
in the commercial use (copyrights, sharing profits, etc.).
When quoting from material contained in this corpus in a publication, please give the following reference
as your source:
Eva-Maria Rößler, Jan David Hauck, and Warren Thompson (eds.) (2008-present).
Multimedia Documentation of the Aché language.
DOBES-Archive. Nijmegen: Max-Planck-Institute for Psycholinguistics.
<http://corpus1.mpi.nl/ds/imdi_browser?openpath=MPI1361199%23>
Acknowledgments
This archive has been created by the documentation team together
with the Aché communities of Eastern Paraguay. The Aché speech community agreed to
deposit their linguistic and cultural heritage in this archive. The innumerable
hours of work spent by the Aché transcribing, annotating, and translating the
recordings attest to the importance that the preservation of their linguistic
traditions and cultural knowledge has to the communities. The documentation
team is happy to be able to contribute to this task and grateful to those diligent
individuals with whom we have the privilege of working. We would like to especially
thank the narrators and singers of traditional songs and stories and their own
recollections, many of them too old to be able to witness the completion of the
archive and what will become of their contributions.
The documentation team would
also like to thank Prof. Dr. Jost Gippert and Dr. Sebastian Drude and the staff
of the Goethe Universität, especially Peter Sauer, for their support and advice.
The archive welcomes all further materials related to the Aché language and culture.
If you are in possession of relevant materials and want to make a donation
please contact the documentation team or the archive manager.
The Aché communities would appreciate it.
Please also visit the project's website.
(last updated: 10/05/2012)