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GEORGE F. LEE / GLEE@STARBULLETIN.COM University of Hawaii students Ryoko Hattori, center, and Matias Gomes sit at a computer station and go over sound files of an East Timorese dialect called Ema as a part of the Language Preservation Project.

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Languages
kept alive

A UH linguistics project helps
native speakers preserve
little-known cultures

At a computer in a University of Hawaii-Manoa linguistics lab, Joao Sarmento from East Timor is trying to figure out how to write the language of his birth.

Sarmento was raised speaking Makasae, one of several languages and dialects in East Timor. But it's not a written language.

So for about 2 1/2 hours a week, he and graduate student Ryoko Hattori work on documenting vocabulary, spelling and pronunciation, in an effort to preserve the language.

"Language is culture," Sarmento said. "I'm trying to be part of my culture, to be culturally aware."

Sarmento is among about 35 linguistics students and native speakers who are part of the Language Preservation Project at UH-Manoa.

It's the brainchild of graduate student Meylysa Tseng, who started it last year as a community service project for the Linguistics Society of Hawaii.

The idea is to teach native speakers more about their own language while giving the graduate linguistics students a practical way to use what they are learning in class.

Hawaii, and in particular the University of Hawaii-Manoa, with its many ethnic groups and students from all over the world, seemed like the perfect place to start the project.

"There's a great opportunity in Hawaii," said Valerie Guerin, the current director of the program. "There's so much diversity to gather as many languages as possible."

So far, the project is documenting about 17 languages, ranging from Kalmyk -- a Mongolian language spoken in the Republic of Kalmyia in Russia -- to Tiwa, which is spoken by the T'ai Pueblo community in New Mexico.

Many of the languages are endangered, meaning that they could die because of a dwindling number of native speakers.

"Languages are the reservoir of knowledge and culture," said Guerin. "Each language is a particular window on the world."

The project's Web site features a description of each language and where it is spoken. Some languages are more documented than others and include audio clips, recordings of songs and other cultural details.

On Saturday the Language Preservation Project will have a booth at the Bishop Museum to show off what it has done so far. Visitors can learn to say hello and other words in the different languages that are part of the project.

The project by itself will not save dying languages, Tseng said, but the people who participate will hopefully learn how to begin the effort to save their culture.

"The idea is to get people involved in documentation," Guerin said, "to show them it's possible to make a difference."

The volunteers can then take what they have learned back home to continue the work.

That is what Sarmento, a former journalist and graduate linguistics student, hopes to do. His main emphasis is Tetum, which is more widely spoken in East Timor.

But because Makasae is the language of his family, he said he will continue to document it.

"It would be a negation of my education if I turned my back on this language," he said.