Symposia

In 2017, a Charn Uswachoke International Development Fund (PI Chelliah) provided planning funds for the Computational Resource for South Asian languages (CoRSAL). Since our first meeting at UNT in November 2017, CoRSAL has gained both language community and institutional partners. Together, researchers, students, community language documenters, the archiving community, and the UNT Digital Library have moved CoRSAL forward from concept to reality.  We continue our mission under a collaborative research agreement between UNT and  Indiana University, Bloomington.  Generous support from many IU partners makes it possible to continue with our symposia.

CoRSAL VIII - 2024 

Building a Digital Network for Language and Culture in South and Southeast Asia

October 4, 2024 (at Indiana University and on Zoom)

Register here  

CoRSAL VIII program

CoRSAL VIII flyer

Details:

Please join us for a one-day symposium on Friday, October 4, 2024, to introduce Computational Resource for South Asian Languages (CoRSAL), a digital resource developed at University of North Texas (UNT) Libraries and School of Library and Information Science, and now made more widely available through a partnership between UNT and Indiana University, Bloomington, Department of Linguistics. The symposium brings together linguists, archivists, curators, librarians, digital technologists, and creators and users of traditional media to envision a broader, networked future for the heritage and languages of Asia, South Asia, and adjacent areas.  

Invited speakers include developers of research-oriented repositories of South Asian languages and historical documents, and creators and users of local, less-networked, traditional repositories in the South Asian region. The symposium sessions are organized to open discussion around the following topics – 

  • The scope and content of digital resources on South Asia in university and other repositories; 
  • The use of language materials, and the extent of outreach, in the U.S. and abroad; 
  • The nature of community-based efforts in the creation of language and other archival resources, and connecting heritage speakers with digital resources; 
  • The building of a community of users for language and other archival resources; 
  • The state of technology (current infrastructure and practices for digital archiving, and improving discoverability of and access to existing resources); 
  • The standards and practices of data sovereignty, intellectual property rights, and ethical data stewardship; 
  • The identification of models for training in documentation of community collections. 

The convening will improve access to under-resourced and vulnerable archival materials on South Asia, expand humanities and social science research opportunities, and create global ties among heritage communities in South Asia. 

A companion meeting will be held at the India Gateway, New Delhi, in Spring 2025.

CoRSAL VII - 2023

Developing Infrastructure for the Computational Resource for South Asian Languages

October 26, 2023 (via ZOOM)

In 2023, keynotes Mark Post and Yankee Modi (University of Sydney) presented a model for supporting language community documentation developed by the Centre for Cultural-Linguistic Diversity (Eastern Himalaya), and a panel of depositors showcased their recent additions to the CoRSAL archive.

CoRSAL VI - 2022

Collecting, Organizing, and Archiving Materials for Dictionaries

September 30, 2022 (via ZOOM)

2022's symposium focused on practical considerations for dictionary-making. Dr. Alexander Coupe of Nanyang Technical University (NTU) Singapore shared his experience in lexicography, and we heard field reports from communities in Northeast India working to create dictionaries for their languages including Boro, Thadou, Uipo, Lamkang, Liangmai, and more.

CoRSAL V - 2021

Increasing Engagement with CoRSAL through Social Media

October 1, 2021 (via ZOOM)

Social media plays a significant role in language revitalization efforts. We learned more about this through our keynote address by Brook Danielle Lillehaugen. Then, CoRSAL depositors shared how they are using social media to increase engagement with their collections. We introduced the CoRSAL Excellence Fund and shared news of our new collections and future plans.

CoRSAL IV - 2020

Archiving Legacy Material for ICSTLL Languages

October 2, 2020 (via ZOOM)

Held in conjunction with the 53rd International Conference on Sino-Tibetan Languages and Linguistics (ICSTLL53). With the goal of raising awareness on the state of language collections for ICSTLL languages, key field researchers in Sino-Tibetan languages (aka Trans-Himalayan) shared stories of field studies in the language groups they study. They reviewed all manner of field notes, cassette tapes, minidisk recordings, unpublished manuscripts, and publications with small print runs that need curation and archiving. Where these materials will be 50 years from now? Is this material safe and accessible, and, if not, what do we need to do to make it so? Are there speaker communities who need this data and are we able to bring it to them? What kind of training in data management and metadata creation do we need to provide our students so that their work can be easily archived? Discussion was led by Kristine Hildebrandt.

CoRSAL III - 2019

Developing Infrastructure for a Computational Resource for South Asian Languages

October 29, 2019

UNT Union, Room 385, UNT MAIN CAMPUS

CoRSAL II - 2018

Developing Infrastructure for a Computational Resource for South Asian Languages

November 1, 2018

UNT GATEWAY CENTER, Room 51, UNT MAIN CAMPUS

CoRSAL I - 2017

Developing Infrastructure for a Computational Resource for South Asian Languages

November 17, 2017

WILLIS LIBRARY, Room 250H, UNT MAIN CAMPUS