Whats different about language documentation with endangered languages?
Linguists and language maintenance practitioners working with endangered languages have discovered many levels of complexity about this task – some of them linguistic, and some of them socio-cultural and political. There are some references at the end of this section which can provide you with more insights into the issues we raise here. Fieldwork with endangered languages involves a certain urgency to optimise documentation as this might be the only opportunity to document a particular language and associated cultural practices. While all language documentation ideally is as rich as possible, there is a special onus on the recording of endangered languages to include information in different genres, spoken by men and women of different ages, and including traditional knowledge specific to the local culture and environment. The different genres should include monologic storytelling, the most usual type of discourse recorded by linguists, but also other kinds of interactions using the l
