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Tangsa is a very linguistically diverse group spoken on the India-Myanmar border, with around 80 distinct and named varieties, many of which are mutually intelligible but many of which are not. In Myanmar, the Tangsa sub-tribes are grouped under Tangshang Naga. This paper examines and exemplifies the phenomneon of verb stem alternation, whereby a single verb has two stems, a verbal stem, which is demonstrated to be the ‘base’ or underived form, and a nominal stem which has different form, most frequently a different tone category. As with other Tibeto-Burman languages, both the forms and the functions of the stem alternations in the Tangsa varieties show considerable diversity. In the Tangsa varieties treated here, one of the stems, which we term the verbal form, is clearly the underived root and the alternate stem is derived from it. The most frequent way of forming an alternate stem is a change of tone category, keeping the vowel and any final consonants the same. In multiple cases in one Tangsa variety there is an alternate stem carrying a different form, and in a related variety there is no alternation between the stems. The verbal and nominal stems for 151 roots in the Mueshaung and Ngaimong varieties will be compared, and the findings of this comparison will be enhanced by observations of stem alternation from other Tangsa varieties.

not available

Most of the records of the Aboriginal languages of Victoria were written down by untrained people in the 19th century. One of the most prolific was the Rev William Thomas (1793-1867), who was Assistant Protector of the Aborigines in the early days of colonisation of what is now Victoria. This article and the thesis upon which it was based closely examine for the first time the linguistic data collected by Thomas in two main sources - his manuscript notes now in the Mitchell Library, Sydney, and a manuscript entitled A lexicon of the Australian Aboriginal languages in the six dialects of Ballarat, Bacchus Marsh, Melbourne, Gippsland, Mount Gambier and Wonnin..., now in the State Library of Victoria. The valuable linguistics data about the various languages in these sources is exemplified, discussed and compared with modem linguistic studies of the languages concerned.

Since 2011, the project EAP373: Documenting, conserving and archiving the Tai Ahom manuscripts of Assam has been, with the help of the British Library’s Endangered Archives Programme, digitising and documenting the written legacy of the Tai Ahom. It has done this in three ways: by photographing and cataloguing Ahom manuscripts, and archiving the resulting digital materials at the British Library; by archiving digital photographs with our partners at the Institute for Tai Studies and Research ...

Much of world's documentary heritage rests in vulnerable, little-known and often inaccessible archives. Many of these archives preserve information that may cast new light on historical phenomena and lead to their reinterpretation. But such rich collections are often at risk of being lost before the history they capture is recorded. This volume celebrates the tenth anniversary of the Endangered Archives Programme at the British Library, established to document and publish online formerly inaccessible and neglected archives from across the globe. From Dust to Digital showcases the historical significance of the collections identified, catalogued and digitised through the Programme, bringing together articles on 19 of the 244 projects supported since its inception. These contributions demonstrate the range of materials documented - including rock inscriptions, manuscripts, archival records, newspapers, photographs and sound archives - and the wide geographical scope of the Programme. Many of the documents are published here for the first time, illustrating the potential these collections have to further our understanding of history.

of presentation for ALS2016

Dedication vTable of contents viiAcknowledgments xxiAbbreviations xxiii

PL-565, Dedication vTable of contents viiAcknowledgments xxiAbbreviations xxiii 1 INTRODUCTION 1 1.1 MEETING THE TAI OF ASSAM 2 1.1.1 Some difficulties in undertaking this research 3 1.1.1.1 Crossing a bamboo bridge 5 1.1.2 Life in Tai villages 6 1.2 THE TAI LANGUAGE FAMILY 7 1.2.1 The Shan group of languages 7 1.2.2 The similarity of the languages in the Shan group 8 1.2.3 The Tai varieties of Northeast India 9 1.3 THE DATA WHICH FORMS THE BASIS OF THIS STUDY 10 1.4 KEY AIMS OF THIS STUDY 11 1.5 THE SCOPE OF THIS WORK 12 2 THE TAIS OF ASSAM & THEIR LANGUAGES 13 2.1 THE LINGUISTIC MIX IN NORTHEAST INDIA 13 2.2 THE AHOMS 14 2.3 THE OTHER TAI GROUPS 17 2.3.1 Some notes on the history of the Tai 18 2.3.2 The Tai Aiton Villages 20 2.3.3 The Tai Phake Villages 22 2.3.4 Other Tai Speaking Villages 24 2.3.4.1 Khamti villages 24 2.3.4.2 Tai Khamyang village 24 2.3.4.3 Turung Villages 24 2.3.5 Difficulties with identifying the various Tai groups 25 2.3.6 A note on the names of the Tai groups 26 2.3.6.1 Ahom 26 2.3.6.2 Aiton 26 2.3.6.3 Khamti 27 2.3.6.4 Khamyang 28 2.3.6.5 Phake 28 2.3.6.6 Turung 28 2.4 CURRENT LINGUISTIC SITUATION 29 2.4.1 A note on the Turung 31 2.4.2 The Khamyang language revitalisation (2002) 31 3 PREVIOUS STUDIES OF THE TAI LANGUAGES 33 3.1 THE NEED FOR A CRITICAL REVIEW OF EARLIER SOURCES ON THE TAI LANGUAGES OF ASSAM 33 3.2 LINGUISTIC SOURCES 34 3.2.1 Buchanan (1799) 34 3.2.2 Brown (1837) 34 3.2.3 Robinson (1849) 35 3.2.4 Campbell (1874) 37 3.2.5 Needham (1894) 39 3.2.6 Grierson (1904) 40 3.2.6.1 Contents of Grierson (1904) 41 3.2.6.2 General Comments on the Tai Group (1904:59-79) 41 3.2.6.3 Ahom (1904:81-140) 42 3.2.6.3.1 Tones 42 3.2.6.4 Khamti (1902:140-165) 42 3.2.6.4.1 Tones 42 3.2.6.4.2 Texts 42 3.2.6.4.2.1 From the Parable of the Prodigal Son 43 3.2.6.5 Tairong (1904:167-177) 44 3.2.6.5.1 Texts 44 3.2.6.5.1.1 From the Parable of the Prodigal Son 44 3.2.6.6 Nora (1904:179-191) 45 3.2.6.6.1 Texts 45 3.2.6.6.1.1 From the Parable of the Prodigal Son 45 3.2.6.6.1.2 Riddles 45 3.2.6.7 Aitonia (1904:193-211) 46 3.2.6.7.1 Orthography 47 3.2.6.7.2 The texts 47 3.2.6.7.2.1 From the Parable of the Prodigal Son 47 3.2.6.8 Comparative Word list and Sentences (1904:214-233) 48 3.2.6.8.1 Vocabulary items 48 3.2.6.8.2 Tense 48 3.2.7 Barua, G.C. (1920) 49 3.2.8 Barua, G.K. (1936) (Ahom Primer) 49 3.2.9 Barua, B.K. and Phukan (1964) (Ahom Lexicons) 50 3.2.10 Barua, B. (1966) 52 3.2.11 Biswas, S. (1966) 52 3.2.12 Phukan (1966) 53 3.2.13 Harris (1976) 54 3.2.14 Weidert (1977 & 1979) 55 3.2.14.1 Weidert (1977) 55 3.2.14.2 Weidert (1979) 57 3.2.15 Wilaiwan (1983, 1986) 57 3.2.15.1 Wilaiwan (1983) 57 3.2.15.2 Wilaiwan (1986) 58 3.2.16 Banchob (1977, 1987) 58 3.2.16.1 Banchob (1977) 58 3.2.16.2 Banchob (1987) 59 3.2.17 Nomal Gogoi (1987 & 1994) 59 3.2.17.1 Gogoi (1987) 59 3.2.17.2 Gogoi (1994) 60 3.2.18 Aimya Khang Gohain (1991, 1997, 1999) 62 3.2.18.1 Aimya Khang Gohain (1991) 62 3.2.18.2 Aimya Khang Gohain (1997) 64 3.2.18.3 Aimya Khang Gohain (1999) 64 3.2.19 Kingcom (1992) 64 3.2.20 Diller (1992) 66 3.2.21 Boruah (2001) 67 3.3 OTHER SOURCES 68 3.3.1 Barua, G.C. (1930) 68 3.3.2 Yehom Buragohain (1981, 1998) 68 3.3.2.1 Yehom Buragohain (1981) 68 3.3.2.2 Yehom Buragohain (1998) 69 3.3.3 Sharma Thakur (1982) 69 3.3.4 Ranoo (1986, 1996) 70 3.3.4.1 Ranoo (1986) 70 3.3.4.2 Ranoo (1996) 70 3.3.5 Terwiel and Ranoo (1992) 70 3.3.6 Chaw Khouk Manpoong (1993) 71 3.3.7 Jaya Buragohain (1998) 72 3.3.8 Hazarika, Chow Nogen (1993, 1996) 73 3.3.8.1 Hazarika (1993) 73 3.3.8.2 Hazarika (1996) 73 4 THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS 74 4.1 LINGUISTIC AND THEORETICAL BASIS 74 4.1.1 'Basic Linguistic Theory' and formal theories of syntax 74 4.1.2 Text Based Grammar 76 4.1.2.1 Description and Documentation 78 4.1.3 Language centred approaches 79 4.1.4 Some particular difficulties in working with the Tai languages of Assam 79 4.2 APPROACHES TO THE STUDY OF TAI LANGUAGES 80 4.2.1 Noss (1964) 80 4.2.2 Vichin Panupong (1970) 81 4.2.3 Pongsri Lekawatana (1970) 83 4.2.4 Previous research on Shan 85 4.3 NATIVE INTUITIONS AND NATIVE PEDAGOGY 87 4.4 PRESCRIPTION AND DESCRIPTION 88 4.5 THE IMPORTANCE OF THE TAI SCRIPT 89 4.6 THE PRESENTATION OF TEXT EXAMPLES 91 4.7 ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS 92 4.7.1 The approach in this study 93 4.7.2 A note on bad language and swearing 96 5 METHODOLOGY: COLLECTION, ANALYSIS AND TRANSLATION OF THE TEXTS 97 5.1 THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS 97 5.2 THE COLLECTION OF DATA 99 5.2.1 Elicitation undertaken as part of this project 99 5.2.2 Text collection 100 5.3 DATA ANALYSIS 101 5.3.1 Prerequisites for analysis 101 5.3.2 Difficulties encountered in analysis 101 5.4 DATA STORAGE 102 5.5 GROUPING THE TEXTS 103 6 PHONOLOGY 106 6.1 SOME THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS 106 6.1.1 Proto Southwestern Tai phonemes 106 6.1.1.1 Proto Southwestern Tai consonants 106 6.1.1.2 Consonant change in Southwestern Tai 108 6.1.1.3 Proto Southwestern Tai vowels 108 6.1.2 Diphthongs in Tai languages 109 6.1.3 Syllable structure in Tai languages 110 6.1.4 The glottal stop 111 6.1.5 Tones 113 6.1.5.1 Definition of Tone 113 6.1.5.2 Notation of tone 114 6.1.5.3 Tone in Tai Languages: Theoretical & historical background 114 6.1.5.4 Changed Tone 116 6.2 PHAKE PHONOLOGY 116 6.2.1 Consonants 116 6.2.2 Vowels 118 6.2.2.1 Vowel length in Phake 119 6.2.2.2 Diphthongisation 120 6.2.2.3 Vowel reduction 121 6.2.3 Phonotactics 122 6.2.3.1 Initial consonant clusters 122 6.2.3.2 Syllable structure 123 6.2.4 Tone 124 6.2.4.1 Tone in Phake as notated by Banchob (1987) 124 6.2.4.2 Tone in Phake reported by Diller (1992) 125 6.2.4.3 Tone in Phake as reported by Wilaiwan (1983) 125 6.2.4.4 Present investigation 126 6.2.4.5 Changed Tone in Phake 129 6.2.4.5.1 The questioning tone in Phake 129 6.2.4.5.2 The Tai Phake negative tone 131 6.2.4.5.3 The imperative tone in Phake 132 6.2.4.6 Tone assignment in loan words 133 6.3 AITON PHONOLOGY 134 6.3.1 Consonants 134 6.3.1.1 Realisation of the Consonants 135 6.3.1.1.1 Voiced Stops 135 6.3.1.1.2 Voiceless unaspirated stops 136 6.3.1.1.3 Voiceless aspirated stops 137 6.3.1.1.4 Nasals 138 6.3.1.1.5 Fricatives 139 6.3.1.1.6 Semivowels 140 6.3.1.1.7 Approximants 141 6.3.1.1.8 Glottal Stop 142 6.3.1.2 Possible reassignment of phoneme symmetry 143 6.3.2 Vowels 144 6.3.2.1 Previous descriptions 144 6.3.2.1.1 Banchob 144 6.3.2.1.2 Diller (1992) 146 6.3.2.2 Present Investigation 147 6.3.2.2.1 Front vowels 148 6.3.2.2.2 Central Vowels 150 6.3.2.2.3 Back Vowels 150 6.3.2.2.4 Vowel length distinction 153 6.3.2.2.5 Diphthongs 155 6.3.2.2.6 Vowel reduction 155 6.3.3 Phonotactics 156 6.3.3.1 Initial consonant clusters 156 6.3.3.2 Epenthetic syllables 157 6.3.4 Tone 157 6.3.4.1 Previous Investigations of Aiton 157 6.3.4.1.1 Banchob 157 6.3.4.1.1.1 Banchob (24/4/1977) 157 6.3.4.1.1.2 Banchob (Aiton-English-Thai Dictionary) 158 6.3.4.1.1.3 Banchob (Tape recordings) 159 6.3.4.1.2 Diller (1992) 160 6.3.4.1.3 Current situation 160 6.3.4.2 Some examples of tone variations 162 6.3.4.2.1 Variation between tones 1 & 4 162 6.3.4.2.2 Possible survival of separate B4 tone 163 6.3.4.3 Short tones in Aiton 163 6.3.4.4 Other unusual tonal patterns 164 6.3.4.5 Tone assignment in loan words 164 6.3.5 The place of Aiton in Southwestern Tai 165 6.4 SOME PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS ON KHAMYANG PHONOLOGY 165 6.4.1 Consonants 166 6.4.1.1 Consonant clusters 169 6.4.2 Vowels 169 6.4.2.1 Vowel reduction 170 6.4.3 Tones 171 6.5 SOME PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS ON AHOM PHONOLOGY 174 6.5.1 Consonants 174 6.5.2 Vowels 176 6.5.3 Tones 177 6.5.4 Ahom and Aiton 178 7 WRITING 179 7.1 AHOM SCRIPT 179 7.1.1 A note on the transcription of the Ahom script 182 7.2 AITON & PHAKE SCRIPT 185 7.2.1 Initial Consonants 185 7.2.1.1 Shapes of the Consonants 186 7.2.2 Final consonants 187 7.2.2.1 Subscripted consonants 187 7.2.3 Vowels 188 7.2.3.1 Special symbols for vowel-consonant or diphthong combinations 192 7.2.3.2 Names of the vowel symbols 193 7.2.4 Ligatures 194 7.2.5 The writing of borrowed words in Tai script 195 7.3 A NOTE ON THE REVISED KHAMTI SCRIPT 196 7.4 COMPARISON OF THE TAI SCRIPTS 197 7.5 SOME NOTES ON TONE MARKING 199 7.5.1 Proposals for marking tones in Tai 199 7.6 DEVELOPMENT/ HISTORY OF THE TAI SCRIPTS 201 7.7 ALPHABETICAL ORDER OF THE TAI SCRIPTS 202 7.8 DEVELOPMENT OF THE TAI FONTS 203 7.9 ON WRITING THE TAI LANGUAGE IN ASSAMESE SCRIPT 205 8 SYNTAX 208 8.1 TYPOLOGICAL PROFILE OF THE TAI LANGUAGES OF ASSAM 208 8.1.1 Morphological Structure 208 8.1.2 Syntactic Structure 210 8.2 WORDS 212 8.2.1 Word classes in Tai languages 212 8.2.2 Nominals 215 8.2.2.1 Nouns 216 8.2.2.1.1 Common Nouns 216 8.2.2.1.1.1 Simple monosyllabic nouns 216 8.2.2.1.1.2 Compound nouns 216 8.2.2.1.2 Proper Nouns 217 8.2.2.2 Pronouns 218 8.2.2.2.1 Reflexive pronouns 220 8.2.2.2.2 Reciprocals 221 8.2.2.3 Interrogative Words 222 8.2.2.4 Classifiers 224 8.2.2.5 Noun class markers 229 8.2.2.6 Nominalisation 230 8.2.3 Verbals 231 8.2.3.1 Verbs 231 8.2.3.1.1 Monosyllabic verbs 231 8.2.3.1.2 Compound verbs 232 8.2.3.2 Auxiliary Verbs 233 8.2.3.3 Completive Verbs 235 8.2.4 Adjectives 236 8.2.4.1 Adjectival modifiers 238 8.2.5 Prepositions 239 8.2.6 Numbers and quantifiers 240 8.2.6.1 Cardinal Numbers 241 8.2.6.2 Ordinal Numbers 242 8.2.6.3 Other quantifiers 242 8.2.7 Demonstratives 243 8.2.8 Conjunctions 245 8.2.8.1 Linking two nouns in a noun phrase 245 8.2.8.2 Linking two predications 246 8.2.9 Isolatives 249 8.2.9.1 Interjections and Exclamations 249 8.2.9.2 Responses 250 8.2.9.3 Vocatives 251 8.2.9.4 Expressives or Imitatives 252 8.2.10 Bound Lexemes 253 8.2.10.1 Tense / Aspect Words 253 8.2.10.2 Sentence Particles 253 8.2.11 Borrowed words 255 8.2.11.1 Burmese loans 255 8.2.11.2 Pali Loans 256 8.2.11.3 Assamese Loans 257 8.2.11.4 English Loans 257 8.3 CONSTITUENTS 258 8.3.1 Preliminary theoretical considerations 258 8.3.2 The Noun Phrase 259 8.3.2.1 Possessor Phrase 261 8.3.2.2 Adjective Phrases 263 8.3.2.2.1 Comparison and similarity 263 8.3.2.3 Quantifier Phrases 265 8.3.2.4 The syntax of demonstratives 267 8.3.2.5 Relative Clauses 268 8.3.3 Core Prepositional Phrases 270 8.3.3.1 Object as prepositional phrase 270 8.3.3.2 Prepositions in three participant events 274 8.3.3.3 Experiencer as Adjunct 278 8.3.4 Non-core elements 280 8.3.4.1 Temporal Phrases 280 8.3.4.2 Locational Phrases 281 8.3.5 Isolative Phrases 283 8.3.6 Elaborate expressions 285 8.4 CONSTITUENT ORDER 288 8.4.1 Preliminary theoretical considerations 288 8.4.1.1 Is there a basic constituent order in Tai? 291 8.4.1.2 Is there a verb phrase in Tai? 292 8.4.2 Constituent order in Khamti 293 8.4.2.1 Needham 293 8.4.2.2 Wilaiwan 294 8.4.2.3 Chau Khouk Manpoong 295 8.4.2.4 Present investigation 296 8.4.3 Constituent order in the Tai languages of Assam 296 8.4.3.1 Differences in constituent order between Tai Aiton and Tai Phake 302 8.4.4 A note on information packaging 303 8.5 PREDICATIONS 304 8.5.1 Copula 304 8.5.2 Existential sentences and possession 308 8.5.3 Definitional sentences 310 8.5.4 One-participant events 312 8.5.5 Two-participant events 312 8.5.6 Three-participant events 313 8.5.7 Tense, Aspect and Modality 315 8.5.7.1 Preliminary Theoretical Considerations 315 8.5.7.2 Previous studies of the Tai languages 317 8.5.7.2.1 Needham 317 8.5.7.2.2 Banchob 319 8.5.7.2.3 Aimya Khang 321 8.5.7.3 The present investigation 321 8.5.7.4 TAM morphemes which precede the verb (TAM1) 322 8.5.7.4.1 tak1/ta1/ti1 322 8.5.7.5 TAM morphemes which may either immediately follow the verb or be placed at the end of the core sentence (TAM2) 324 8.5.7.5.1 kaa1/kA1 326 8.5.7.5.2 maa2/mA2 328 8.5.7.5.3 wai3/wai4 331 8.5.7.6 TAM morphemes which occur at the end of the core sentence (TAM3) 333 8.5.7.6.1 uu1/U1 and q1 334 8.5.7.6.2 suu1/sU1 335 8.5.7.6.3 Yau3/yau4 337 8.5.7.7 Other TAM morphemes 339 8.5.7.7.1 dai3/nai3 339 8.5.7.8 Combinations of TAM morphemes 341 8.5.7.9 Utterances unmarked by TAM morphemes 343 8.5.7.10 Time expressions 344 8.5.8 Multi-Verb Sequences 345 8.5.9 Completive Verbs 347 8.6 NON-DECLARATIVE SENTENCES 349 8.6.1 Theoretical considerations 349 8.6.2 Questions 349 8.6.2.1 Polar questions 350 8.6.2.2 WH-questions 352 8.6.2.3 Questions expressed by word order or tone alteration 352 8.6.2.3.1 Word order 352 8.6.2.3.2 Tonal alternation 353 8.6.3 Negation 355 8.6.4 Imperative 359 8.7 COMPLEX SENTENCES 363 8.7.1 Causatives & Purposive constructions 367 9 THE LITERATURE OF THE TAI 372 9.1 LITERACY AMONG THE TAI 372 9.2 TYPES OF LITERATURE 375 9.2.1 Cataloguing the Tai manuscripts 378 9.2.2 The relationship between Ahom Texts and the texts of the other Tai groups 378 9.2.3 The difficulties of reading Ahom Texts 379 9.2.4 The interpretation of Tai Aiton, Khamyang and Phake texts 380 9.2.5 Some examples of literary devices 380 9.3 THE IMPORTANCE OF LITERATURE 382 9.4 BRINGING THE TAI LANGUAGES INTO THE COMPUTER AGE: PRESENTING THE LITERATURE FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE COMMUNITY 382 9.5 THE TEXTS PRESENTED IN THIS STUDY 383 9.5.1 Phake 384 9.5.2 Aiton 386 9.5.3 Khamyang 387 9.5.4 Turung 388 10 LEXICOGRAPHY 389 10.1 TAI AITON DICTIONARY 389 10.1.1 The word list of Bidya Thoumoung 389 10.1.2 Other sources of lexicographical information on Aiton 390 10.1.3 Current state of the Tai Aiton Dictionary 391 10.2 TAI PHAKE DICTIONARY 392 10.2.1 Current State of the Tai Phake Dictionary 392 10.3 THE COMPUTER DATA BASE 393 10.3.1 Design of the data base 393 11 POSTSCRIPT: PRESENTING THIS WORK IN AN ELECTRONIC FORMAT 395 11.1 CREATING AND WORKING WITH NON-STANDARD FONTS 395 11.2 PRESENTING THE SOUND FILES 397 11.2.1 Recording the texts 397 11.2.2 Digitising the texts 398 11.2.3 Linking the texts to the work 398 11.3 THE ROLE OF THE RESEARCHER IN THE ELECTRONIC AGE 400 11.4 ARCHIVING THE DATA 400 11.5 POSSIBILITIES THAT WERE NOT FOLLOWED UP 401 11.6 USING THE CD VERSION OF THIS WORK 401 11.7 CONCLUSION 402Bibliography 403

Contents vPreface and acknowledgments ixAbbreviations xi

In the framework of a DoBeS project funded by the Volkswagen Foundation, a team of linguists, anthropologists and an ethnomusicologist is currently researching three language groups in Upper Assam, India, a region known for its linguistic diversity. The full project title, The traditional songs and poetry of Upper Assam – a multifaceted linguistic and ethnographic documentation of the Tangsa, Tai and Singpho communities in Margherita, Northeast India, indicates that the focus of our cooperation has been on artistic expressions of language in the three language groups. This paper is about two of the language varieties that we are documenting for the DoBeS project: Singpho (Numphuk variety) and Tai Phake. We first present an analysis of the Singpho tonal system based initially on the intuition of one of the more linguistically aware native speakers (Manje La), but extending this with an alternative approach to the system that reanalyzes the lengthened vowels of some syllables to be one of the components of tone rather than a component of vowel length. We will then discuss the relation between tones and melody in Singpho and present a new method for investigating the relation of pitch in speech and singing in a field experiment..., Language Documentation and Description, Vol. 10 (2012): Special Issue on Humanities of the lesser-known: New directions in the description, documentation and typology of endangered languages and musics

009 Stephen Morey, Mark W. Post and Victor Friedman The language codes of ISO 639: A premature and possibly unobtainable standardization ISO 639 is an ambitious attempt to standardize and organize various types of references to the languages of the world. It is designed to be fully comprehensive and permanent; as such, it promises to greatly enhance the precision and reliability with which language materials can be archived, catalogued, and referenced in the literature, as well as the ease and precision with which such materials and references can be processed by machines and effectively located via search queries. There are, however, a number of serious problems with several components of ISO 639 as they are currently conceived. At a minimum, these are: (1) use of both The Ethnologue as the basis for ISO 639-3’s “three-letter codes” and of SIL as its registration authority is problematic for a number of reasons (2) in-principle “arbitrary” (but in fact not arbitrary) “mnemonic” labels of ISO 639-3 have the potential to enshrine offensive designations for language communities, and in fact currently do so (3) decision-making processes in ISO 639-3 are currently excessively centralized and privilege the views of a minority of the linguistics community (4) the in-principle “permanency” of language codes such as those of ISO 639-3 is fundamentally incompatible with the nature of human languages, which are demonstrably impermanent (5) the structure of ISO 639-3 has a serious potential to be misunderstood, misused, and in fact abused by decision-making bodies (such as arms of government in various political contexts) (6) ISO 639-5, which attempts to catalogue the genetic affiliations of the world’s languages, is highly premature, since there is nothing approaching agreement among specialists in a great number of cases (7) ISO 639-6, which attempts to catalogue language variation, is in principle impossible, unless it aims to extend to an analysis of the language use of every human being on Earth, living or dead On the basis of these observations, which we will illustrate by means of three detailed “case studies” from the Eastern Himalaya, the Burmese/Indian border region, and the Balkan region, we will argue that ISO 639 must be substantially re-conceived and re-organized before it can be supported by linguists. The language codes of ISO 639: A premature and possibly unobtainable standardization. ISO 639 is an ambitious attempt to standardize and organize various types of references to the languages of the world. It is designed to be fully comprehensive and permanent; as such, it promises to greatly enhance the precision and reliability with which language materials can be archived, catalogued, and referenced in the literature, as well as the ease and precision with which such materials and references can be processed by machines and effectively located via search queries. There are, however, a number of serious problems with several components of ISO 639 as they are currently conceived. At a minimum, these are: (1) use of both The Ethnologue as the basis for ISO 639-3’s “three-letter codes” and of SIL as its registration authority is problematic for a number of reasons (2) in-principle “arbitrary” (but in fact not arbitrary) “mnemonic” labels of ISO 639-3 have the potential to enshrine offensive designations for language communities, and in fact currently do so (3) decision-making processes in ISO 639-3 are currently excessively centralized and privilege the views of a minority of the linguistics community (4) the in-principle “permanency” of language codes such as those of ISO 639-3 is fundamentally incompatible with the nature of human languages, which are demonstrably impermanent (5) the structure of ISO 639-3 has a serious potential to be misunderstood, misused, and in fact abused by decision-making bodies (such as arms of government in various political contexts) (6) ISO 639-5, which attempts to catalogue the genetic affiliations of the world’s languages, is highly premature, since there is nothing approaching agreement among specialists in a great number of cases (7) ISO 639-6, which attempts to catalogue language variation, is in principle impossible, unless it aims to extend to an analysis of the language use of every human being on Earth, living or dead On the basis of these observations, which we will illustrate by means of three detailed “case studies” from the Eastern Himalaya, the Burmese/Indian border region, and the Balkan region, we will argue that ISO 639 must be substantially re-conceived and re-organized before it can be supported by linguists.

It is well established that the archiving of materials from endangered languages needs to be not just the archiving of recordings, but also a rich metadata, including, wherever possible, transcriptions, translations, and glossing of the meaningful elements in the languages which would otherwise be lost. All linguistic transcriptions and analysis face complex issues of transcription; there are always alternate ways to represent language transcriptions, such as whether certain grammatical elements should be treated as separate phonological elements, words or particles, or treated as affixes or clitics. In many cases these alternate analyses are in the purview of the linguist; with speakers of the language more or less agreeing on what the form is. With traditional songs and ritual texts, whether in oral or written form, there can be alternate analyses depending on the consultants that the linguist is working with, and these analyses can change over time. For example, when listening back to recordings of traditional ritual / sung texts, consultants sometimes interpret something different on the recording from that which is clearly audible. Which version should be transcribed? Which version is correct? The issue becomes much more complicated when the interpretation of the meaning of such texts is undertaken. And in traditional societies, the interpretations of these materials may have, and did, change over time. So how is this going to be dealt and fit in with the archivist's intention to make 'permanent' records, records that don't change over time? The idea of a 'permanent' record wouldn't have been possible in traditional societies where reanalysis and meaning changing was ongoing. Using examples from Singpho sagas (Hka yawng ningkin, the 'water flowing song), the Tangsa ritual songs (Wihu Qhyoe, the song for the earth mother) and Ahom ritual manuscripts (Ming Mvng Lung Phai, the text for calling back the tutelary spirit of the country), we will demonstrate and discuss these issues. PARADISEC (Pacific And Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures), Australian Partnership for Sustainable Repositories, Ethnographic E-Research Project and Sydney Object Repositories for Research and Teaching.