Transcribed and Translated Kusunda Recordings

Kusunda Data

These data were collected by Uday Raj Aaley and Tim Bodt, with cooperation from videographer Sonam Tashi Chhumare, between July 29th and August 12th, 2019, in Sitapaila, Kathmandu, Nepal.

The two resource persons are the then last two speakers of Kusunda, Gyani Maiya Sen Kusunda (speaker code: GM) and Kamala Khatri (Sen Kusunda) (speaker code: K). Several months after these recordings were made, Gyani Maiya passed away.

The transcriptions in IPA and the Nepali translations were made by Uday Raj Aaley, while English translations were provided by Tim Bodt with assistance from Chungda Chhumare.

These transcribed and translated recordings have a total length of 1 hour, 57 minutes and 29 seconds.

The metadata of the individual recordings are provided in the table below.

For the time being, these data will remain under a restricted access regime. We will only provide access to (parts of) this deposit upon specific written request. Anyone with a genuine interest in these data can submit such a request to [e-mail] (Tim Bodt), with CC to [e-mail] (Uday Raj Aaley). We will discuss every request with Kamala Khatri (Sen Kusunda), the remaining speaker in the recordings, and the Chairperson of the Nepal Kusunda Development Society. Every request will be judged on an individual basis. We expect anyone requesting access to provide a full justification of their interest in the data, including at a minimum: their name and occupation; their (academic) background and affiliation; their purpose of requesting access to the data; the project, project duration, project objectives and project funding for which they will use the data; and the individuals who will work with these data. We expect everyone accessing these data to: fully acknowledge the speakers and the transcribers/translators of the recordings; not share these data beyond those individuals mentioned as part of the project; not use the data for purposes other than stated in the project; and not in any way commercialise these data or the project outcomes based on them.

We ideally would share the recordings, transcriptions and translations with a PhD student or a postdoc on a dedicated, fully funded project who will further analyse them to augment the existing descriptions of Kusunda, in particular, Watters (2006). We are also happy to share these data (for example, transcripts of the recordings and their translations) with ethnographers, anthropologists and others interested to learn more about the Kusunda culture and history.

The data are contained in zip files that most commonly consist of an .eaf ELAN project file, an .pfsx ELAN preferences file, an .mp4 video file, a .wav sound file, and one or several a .doc Word files with the initial transcription and translation. If saved in the same folder, opening the ELAN project file will simultaneously open the correct corresponding video file.

ELAN tier set-up: The basic ELAN project files (.eaf) contain six basic tiers, in which X refers to the speaker, A for Gyani Maiya, and B for Kamala:

1)      X_phrase-txt-kgg-fonipa: the standardised and corrected IPA transcription of the utterance

2)      X_phrase-lit-kgg-Deva-x-Com: the Devanagari transcription of the utterance by Uday

3)      X_phrase-lit-kgg-x-Com: the IPA transcription of the utterance by Uday

4)      X_phrase-gls-ne: the Nepali translation of the utterance by Uday

5)      X_phrase-gls-en: the English translation of the utterance by Tim

6)      X_phrase-note-en: any notes on the utterance

One ELAN project file (KGG_290719_A2.eaf) has been (partially) annotated in FLEx and shows additional word- and morpheme level tiers.

The remaining recordings with a total length of 2 hours, 36 minutes and 20 seconds have been only partially transcribed and translated. We will add these ELAN files as and when we complete them. These recordings are mostly comments on children’s picture books. Unlike the recordings that have already been processed, they are useful for linguistic analysis but do not contribute much to our knowledge of Kusunda culture and history.

We are greatly indebted to late Gyani Maiya Sen Kusunda and to Kamala Sen Kusunda for sharing their knowledge and wisdom, and to Kamala Sen Kusunda for patiently working on the transcription and translation of the recordings. We also acknowledge the support of the British Academy through Postdoctoral Fellowship PF20\100076 “Substrate language influence in the southern Himalayas”, the SOAS Seedcorn fund X074, the Endangered Language Fund (http://www.endangeredlanguagefund.org/), Dr. Johann-Mattis List and the European Research Council Starting Grant 715618 “Computer-Assisted Language Comparison” (http://calc.digling.org), and contributions from donors, some of whom preferred to remain anonymous, through our GoFundMe crowdfunding website at https://www.gofundme.com/f/saving-the-kusunda-language-in-nepal.

S/N

date

zip (.zip)

ELAN (.eaf)

video (.mp4)

audio (.wav)

speaker(s)

topic

length

1

29/07/2019

KGG_290719_A2

KGG_290719_A2

KGG_290719_A2

KGG_290719_A2

GM

introduction

00:01:47

2

29/07/2019

KGG_290719_B2

KGG_290719_B2

KGG_290719_B2

KGG_290719_B2

K

introduction

00:01:54

3

29/07/2019

KGG_290719_V005

KGG_290719_V005

KGG_290719_V005

[KGG290719_C2]

GM, K

journey from Lamahi to Kathmandu

00:04:26

4

29/07/2019

KGG_290719_V009

KGG_290719_V009

KGG_290719_V009

[KGG290719_D2, KGG290719_F2]

GM, K

earlier visits to Kathmandu

00:12:03

5

30/07/2019

KGG_300719_E2

KGG_300719_E2

KGG_300719_V026

KGG_300719_E2

GM

origin story

00:02:19

6

31/07/2019

KGG_310719_E2 E3 E4

KGG_310719_E2 E3 E4

KGG_310719_V044

KGG_310719_V044 (=KGG_310719_E2, KGG_310719_E3, KGG_310719_E4)

GM

life in the forest

00:07:20

7

01/08/2019

KGG_010819_B2

KGG_010819_B2

KGG_010819_V011

KGG_010819_V011 (=KGG010819_B2)

K

begging practice

00:05:07

8

01/08/2019

KGG_010819_C2

KGG_010819_C2

KGG_010819_V015

KGG_010819_V015 (=KGG_010819_C2)

K

life in India

00:06:20

9

01/08/2019

KGG_010819_D2B-D6B E2B-E8B

KGG_010819_D2B-D6B E2B-E8B

KGG_010819_D2B-D6B E2B-E8B (=KGG_010819_V031)

KGG_010819_D2B-D6B E2B-E8B (=KGG_010819_D2B, KGG_010819_D3B, KGG_010819_D4B, KGG_010819_D5B, KGG_010819_D6B, KGG_010819_E2B, KGG_010819_E3B, KGG_010819_E4B, KGG_010819_E5B, KGG_010819_E6B, KGG_010819_E7B, KGG_010819_E8B) 

GM

life stages

00:16:12

10

03/08/2019

KGG_030819_E1A

KGG_030819_E1A

KGG_030819_V042

KGG_030819_V042 (=KGG_030819_E1A)

GM

traditional medicine

00:04:57

11

04/08/2019

KGG_040819_E2

KGG_040819_E2

KGG_040819_V018

KGG_040819_V018 (=KGG_040819_E2)

K

future plans

00:09:50[1]

12

08/08/2019

KGG_080819_A1

KGG_080819_A1

KGG_080819A1 (=KGG_080819_V001)

KGG_080819_A1

GM, K

future of the language

00:18:27

13

08/08/2019

KGG_080819_V011

KGG_080819_V011

KGG_080819_V011

KGG_080819_V011 (=KGG_080819_D1)

GM, K

comments on Reinhard’s photos

00:27:13

[1] The first 00:01:24 and the last 13 seconds of this recording have not been transcribed and translated because they are spoken in Nepali. We are processing a new recording and ELAN file excluding these segments.