Archives, morphological analysis, & XML encoding: interdisciplinary methods in the creation of a digital text

explorer for Colonial Zapotec manuscriptsBrook Danielle Lillehaugen, Haverford College * George Aaron Broadwell, University of Florida

Laurie Allen, Haverford College * Michel R. Oudijk, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

HDH II Congreso Internacional. Innovación, globalización e impacto * October 5-7, 2015 * Madrid

Ticha http://ticha.haverford.edu

Ticha #Ticha http://ticha.haverford.edu

Linguists

Brook Danielle Lillehaugen, Haverford College, @blillehaugen

George Aaron Broadwell, University of Florida, @SaratogaAaron

Ethnohistorian

Michel R. Oudijk, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

Coordinator for Digital Scholarship and Services

Laurie Allen, Magill Library at Haverford College, @librlaurie

Student researchers

May Plumb, Haverford College and many others

Ticha

http://ticha.haverford.edu

● Background-Zapotec language & people-Motivations for Ticha-Zapotec manuscripts

● Importance of detailed linguistic analysis

● Mode of presentation● Technical aspects & tools● Future directions● Discussion

Oaxaca

Google Maps

Oaxaca

from Munro et al 2007

Zapotec languages

Galant and Foreman (2010); data from Smith Stark 2003

Zapotec languages● 200,000 - 250,000 speakers of Zapotec languages● Communities are shifting to Spanish● All Zapotec varieties are endangered: they are losing

speakers faster than they are gaining them● Many Zapotec varieties are critically endangered● Zapotec has no de facto official government status● Most speakers of Zapotec don’t write their language● Discrimination against speakers of Zapotec (and other

indigenous languages) has a long history and continues even today

Zapotec people

Zapotec

Zapotec writing

Zapotec alphabetic writing

Zapotec textsWhat kind of texts exist?

(handwritten)● testaments● bills of sale● legal complaints

(printed)● grammars● dictionaries● doctrines of faith● confessionals● poetry

Zapotec texts

● The texts are made publically available on Ticha as soon as possible (at

any stage of analysis)

● The acknowledgement of existence of these texts is important to the

community and gives public prestige to the language

● It makes visible a written history of a language currently seen as “only” an

oral language

● We consult with Zapotec language activists on their preferences & needs,

which drives design decisions / priorities in some cases

Understanding a text: Transcription

Un exemplo os quiero poner, delo que passa entre nosotros los españoles: para que entendays bien esto que os digo. Si un hombre español tiene vna muger dormilona, golosa, pe[re]zosa mal çufrida, y que se le va a las baruas: es verdad que le da d' bofetones, y de puñadas, y la messa los cabellos, y la arrastra: pero si es honesta y guarda lealtad a su marido, y no se junta con otro, no la mata por esso

[We need to translate this]

Alaa tobi bennabi xiteni tono beni Castilla colohuialato niani quenni chahuito tichatij, ni tinni ya lato. Tebelatobibeni Castilla naca leâ benigona lechelani, canaxe tâgoni, oatilla naca lachini, toça caloo, toçaca tuani lechèlani, chicani oalijca tigapa, tibibi beni niguio loo xibeni gonàni, oalijca tàxeni quichaquiquieni, tigòba yoonini, Tebèla benigonâ tapachahuini xipelalatini, tapachahui xicasadoni, ya quichàgani cetobila beni: chicani ya quetiñe teteni: yacati teteni ñaa xi beniniguioni loo ticha cani. [We need to translate this and understand how it relates to the Spanish]

Understanding a text: Glossing

● T

How do we know the meanings of the words?

● Colonial Zapotec dictionary (Cordova 1578)● Fieldwork on modern Zapotec languages● The linguistic analysis is facilitated by use of Fieldwork Language Explorer (FLEx), a widely

available language database. Our FLEx project has○ a 48,000 word lexicon○ ca. 70 documents

● Corpus FLEx search for comparisons (63,000 word corpus)

Understanding a text: Translation

This allows us to make a hypothesis about the original meaning of the Zapotec, approximately:

"Now I will teach you one example of (from) us Spanish people"

Extended translation part 1

Extended translation, part 2

Passage in whole

Spanish (trans)It is true that he slaps her, and gives her punches, and pulls her hair, and drags her: but if she is honest and maintains loyalty to her husband, and doesn't sleep with another, he doesn't kill her for that.

Zapotec (trans)truly he slaps her and thrashes her, he pulls the hair of her head, he drags her on the ground; if the woman has her body well, has her husband well, she does not join with another person, then she will be not be punished very much, she will not die (very much) at the hand of her husband for this

Passage in whole, continued

Spanish (trans)But if she is dishonest, and leaves her husband, and goes with another (it happens every day), the husbands kill them and take their lives.

Zapotec (trans)If she is promiscuous, she leaves her husband, she puts another with her companion (lit. her reciprocal servant): then the man will not punish this woman very much (it is always like this)

How to share this work?

- Modular development - Free or nearly free tools

- FLEx - tool used by linguists- TEI - widely used encoding standard- XSLT (soon python)- Jekyll (html, css, javascript)

- Collaboration with undergraduates

Ticha http://ticha.haverford.edu

Future directions● There are many similar colonial

texts in other indigenous languages.

● The example on the right is from Timucua, a language of Spanish Colonial Florida.

● Our goal for the Timucua project is to use the same technology for images, TEI, and FLEx as Ticha, differing only in the indigenous language chosen.

Xtyoztenyu - Thank you - Graciashttp://ticha.haverford.edu

#TichaBrook Danielle Lillehaugen, @blillehaugen

George Aaron Broadwell, @SaratogaAaron

Laurie Allen,

@librlaurie

Works cited

Feria, Pedro de. 1567. Doctrina Christiana en lengua Castellana y Çapoteca. (4-16-2015). https://archive.org/details/doctrinachristia00feri.

Folger Shakespeare Library. "Hamlet." Folger Shakespeare Library. n.d. Web. (4-16-15). http://www.folger.edu/.

Lillehaugen, Brook Danielle, George Aaron Broadwell, Michel R. Oudijk, & Laurie Allen. 2015. Ticha: a digital text explorer for Colonial Zapotec, First edition. (Sept 24, 2015). http://ds.haverford.edu/ticha/.

Lockhart 2001 Grammar of the Mexican Language: With an Explanation of Its Adverbs,(1645). Horacio Carochi, Stanford Univ. Press.

Marcus, Joyce & Kent V. Flannery. 1994. “Ancient Zapotec ritual and religion: an application of the direct historical approach”. The ancient mind: Elements of cognitive archaeology, ed. by Colin Renfrew and Ezra B. W. Zubrow, 57-58. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Monte Alban image from WikiCommons: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Monte_Alban_view.jpg.

Munro, Pamela, Brook Danielle Lillehaugen & Felipe Lopez. 2007. Cali Chiu? A Course in Valley Zapotec. Volumes 1 – 4. Lulu publishing: www.lulu.com.

Oudijk, Michel R. 2008. El texto más antiguo en zapoteca. Tlalocan 15.227-40. México, D.F. UNAM.

Works cited (cont.)Rojas Torres, Rosa. 2009. La categoría ‘adjetivo’ en el Arte del idioma zapoteco (1578) y el Vocabulario en lengua çapoteca (1578) de Juan de Córdova. Historiographia linguistica 36.259-279.

Schrader-Kniffki & Yannakakis. 2014. Sins and crimes: Zapotec-Spanish translation in Catholic evangelization and colonial law in Oaxaca, New Spain. Missionary Linguistics V / Lingüística Misi. pp. 161-200. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

SIL International. 2014. Fieldworks Language Explorer (FLEx). SIL Fieldworks. (4-16-15). http://fieldworks.sil.org/flex/.

Smith Stark 2003 Smith Stark, Thomas C. 2003. “La ortografía del zapoteco en el Vocabvlario de fray Juan de Córdova”. Escritura Zapoteca: 2,500 años de historia, ed. by María de los Ángeles Romero Frizzi, 173-239. México, D.F.: INAH.

Tavárez, David. 2010. Zapotec Time, Alphabetic Writing, and the Public Sphere. Ethnohistory 57(1).3-85.

TEI Consortium, eds. TEI P5: Guidelines for Electronic Text Encoding and Interchange. Version P5. 2013-03-12 . TEI Consortium. (4-16-15). http://www.tei-c.org/Guidelines/P5/.

Van Gogh Museum and Huygens ING, Vincent Van Gogh, The Letters. Version November 2014. (4-16-2015). http://www.vangoghletters.org/vg/.

Zulauf, Michelle R. 2013. Indigenous cuisine: an archaeological and linguistic study of colonial Zapotec foodways on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. M.A. thesis, University of Massachusetts, Boston.