Can undergraduates document a language?
28 students from Obafemi Awolowo University, Linguistics and African Languages Department, decided to answer that question by documenting Uro, an endangered language spoken in Ajowa-Akoko, Ondo State.
Language documentation is expensive and available funding cannot realistically cater to all endangered languages at once. So we decided not to wait for funds that might never come, but to act and take the first steps ourselves.
We funded it out of pocket and documented anyway.
We created:
- A 1,200-word dictionary
- Educational materials
- Flashcards for kids to learn: Uro Alphabets, Numbers, Animals, Fruits and Food, Household and Common Objects, Trees, Gardens and Nature.
- Storybooks with engaging images
- Interactive Uro language learning games. And more still coming…
Funds were tight. We were seriously limited. But we didn’t let that stop us 😄
Every material produced from this project was made by a student team that was not paid and even contributed their own money.
We like to call ourselves stronghead linguists 😎