DoBeS

The MPI for Psycholinguistics holds the central digital archive for the DoBeS endangered languages documentation programme. There are more than 6000 different languages in the world at this moment, but a large part of those languages is in danger of becoming extinct in the near future. The DoBeS (Dokumentation Bedrohter Sprachen) programme was started in 2000 by the German VolkswagenFoundation with the aim to document some of these languages before it is too late. About 50 documentation projects have been funded until now to document one or more endangered languages in various parts of the world. These projects create a rich multimedia documentation of the language within its cultural setting, consisting of annotated video and audio recordings, photographs, texts, etc. The material is all made available in the online archive, although permission is required to view many of the resources. more>