Our Mission
The mission of the Language Documentation Training Center (LDTC) is to train native speakers of underdocumented languages to work on the documentation of their own languages. The goals of the LDTC is to equip native speakers with basic skills in documentation, to offer them a public domain for making information about their languages accessible, and to inspire native speakers to become language advocates in their own communities. We hope that the participants will re-discover their native language through different perspectives and spread their appreciation of their language and culture to others.
Who We Are
The LDTC was initiated and is run entirely by graduate students in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. Students work together to design the curriculum, schedule, recruitment, and other activities.
Our goals are to introduce basic concepts in language documentation to speakers of underdocumented languages, so that they will be able to document their own language. Native speakers spend a semester or more attending workshops on language documentation techniques, learning relevant computer software, and discussing issues in documentation. All sessions are led by linguistics graduate students who are themselves interested in language documentation.
Each language expert participant is paired up with a graduate student who acts as a mentor, guiding the participant through the workshops. Working together, they design a website that displays information about the participant’s language. At the end of the semester, these projects are presented to the community and uploaded to the Languages page of this website
Our Co-Directors
Nathan adamson
Nathan is a first-year Linguistics PhD student at UH Mānoa originally from Pleasant Grove, Utah. His research interests center around language documentation and conservation of the languages of Austronesia, particularly with the languages of the Philippines. Additionally, he is interested in historical comparative linguistics and linguistic typology. Nathan completed a Bachelor's degree in saxophone performance and a Master’s degree in linguistics from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. Outside of linguistics, he enjoys playing and teaching music, trying new foods, and traveling.
Orlyn joyce esquivel
Orlyn is a second-year Linguistics PhD student at the University of Hawai'i Mānoa, and she currently works with the Ayta Magbukun community (a Negrito ethnic group) in the Philippines. Her research interests revolve around language documentation, language acquisition, and developing pedagogical materials for Indigenous communities. Aside from linguistics, she finds joy in expressing herself through digital art and painting and has a soft spot for petting cats.