Meänkieli: Spoken Corpus and Descriptive Grammar

The present project aims to a) document Meänkieli, an endangered minority language of Northern Sweden, with data from all varieties, including previously underdescribed ones, b) transcribe and annotate existing recordings, c) create a corpus of spoken Meänkieli based on material from a) and b), and d) write a comprehensive descriptive grammar of the language.

The project will apply language documentation and description methods.The project will be carried out over a four-year period in cooperation between two linguists working on Meänkieli from Uppsala University and the Meänkieli language advisor at the Swedish Institute for Language and Folklore. We will hire a research assistant to transliterate and annotate the corpus, and collect new data.

Year 1: archive work and recordings, grammar - introductory chapter, public seminar. Year 2: archive work and recordings, scientific paper, grammar - phonology, morphology.

Year 3: archive work and recordings, scientific paper, grammar - syntax, conference; Year 4: archive work and recordings, two scientific papers, finalise grammar and edited volume.The Meänkieli community will benefit as follows: i) a community member will be hired for data collection, transliteration, annotation and analysis; ii) the corpus will make the archived materials more easily available to the public, and play a role in the standardisation and revitalization of Meänkieli, and iii) publication of a comprehensive grammar will further strengthen its status.