Tsuu T'ina First Nation
Chris Cox, Tatiana Kryuchkova, Sally Rice, Benjamin Tucker
with Gary Donovan and Bruce Starlight
In May 2008, we assisted with the recording of conversational Tsúut’ína. Recordings were conducted at the Tsuu T’ina Junior Senior High School and in the Centre for Comparative Psycholinguistics Mobile Laboratory. Seven Tsuu T’ina elders participated in recording sessions consisting of groups of four or five elders. Four sessions were held, each roughly one hour long, recording both video (two cameras) and audio (four table microphones, two wireless microphones). All recordings fully digital (DV/WAV). Approximately four hours of video and audio data were recorded for each device (approx. 26 hours of raw audio, 6 hours of video) and we are currently engaged in manual post-processing to align audio tracks with video. Those segments that were identified for immediate transcription and translation are now on DVD.
Work continues on the transcription, translation, and parsing in partnership with Tsuu T’ina First Nation, with the goal of producing DVDs with appropriate subtitles. We are also embarking on a project to digitize exisiting written materials, convert all existing textual materials to Unicode, and integrate all texts and dictionary entries into the existing collection of the Tsuu T’ína First Nation’s language materials.