The following are software tools for use in field linguistics and language description. Please send suggestions for additions to this page to Peter Cole <pcole@udel.edu>. If you have used one of the tools extensively and would like to write a one or two paragraph evaluation, we would be happy to include it on the page. (If the evaluation is negative, it should be a signed evaluation.)

Questionnaires

Questionnaires are an important tool in linguistic fieldwork because they allow a fieldworker who is relatively inexperienced in a particular area of linguistics to gather the full range of data in that area. For many of the questionnaires below there are language descriptions that used the questionnaire in gathering the data. In some cases the same website containing the questionnaire also contains such descriptions.

• The Lingua Descriptive Studies Questionnaire (Comrie & Smith 19777; a questionnaire primarily aimed for grammar-writing, but with useful structural questions that should be addressed in the field; the Lingua Questionnaire underlies the North Holland/Croom Helm/Routledge Descriptive grammar series). This questionnaire provides the basic questions for the description of many of the constructions found in human language.
• Abbi, Anvita, 2001. A manual of linguistic field work and structures of Indian languages. Muenchen: LINCOM (Not available on-line. Appendix with useful questionnaires for South Asian languages and for other languages as well)
• Dahl, Östen, 1985, Tense and aspect systems. Oxford: Blackwell (Appendix with translation questionnaire used for surveying contexts in which tense and aspect markers are used.)
• Rutgers Questionnaire on Anaphora in African Languages (developed by Ken Safir) Primarily directed at African languages, but useful in a much broader context
• Utrecht Anaphora Questionnaire (a general questionnaire for eliciting data on reflexives and reciprocals, and, to a lesser extent, pronominals, developed by Alexis Dimitriadis and Martin Everaert)
• 2000 East Nusantara Linguistic Workshop Questionnaires:
  • Deixis Questionnaire (developed by Aone van Engelenhoven for the 2000 East Nusantara Linguistics Workshop, workshop on deixis)
  • Valency Questionnaire (developed by Marian Klamer for the 2000 East Nusantara Linguistics Workshop, workshop on valency)
  • Language Contact Questionnaire (developed by John Bowden for the 2000 East Nusantara Linguistics Workshop, workshop on language contact)
  • Oral Traditions Questionnaire (developed by Margaret Florey for the 2000 East Nusantara Linguistics Workshop, workshop on oral traditions)
• Questionnaire for Control Verbs (developed by Barbara Stiebels, Szymon Slodowicz and Yi-Chun Yang)
• Questionnaire on Motion in Australian Languages (developed by David Wilkins, David Nash and Jane Simpson, should be useful in a much broader context than Australian languages)
• Questionnaire on Stress Typology (developed by Harry van der Hulst & Rob Goedemans, this document contains a report on their research including their questionnaire)
• A Typological Questionnaire on Imperative Constructions (developed by Viktor S. Xrakovskij, Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Linguistic Research, St. Petersburg, in Typology of Imperative Constructions, ed. V.S. Xrakovskij, Lincom Studies in Theoretical Linguistics, 09 (2001))
• STEDT Questionnaires: the linked questionnaires were developed by James A. Matisoff and collaborators as a means of obtaining data for the Sino-Tibetan Etymological Dictionary and Thesaurus. The following questionnaires are included:
  • Body Parts
  • Animals
  • Natural Objects
  • Plants
  • Kinship and People

Glossing and formatting data

• The Leipzig Glossing Rules

Stimulis Kits for Data Elicitation (MPI Nijmegen)

• Classifier Elicitation Kit Annie Senghas MPI Nijmegen 21 July 1999
• Archive of Stimulus Kits: MPI Nijmegen has produced a variety of Quicktime movies and other stimuli that can be shown to informants to elicit a variety of lexical items. In most cases, the stimuli are accompanied by detailed manuals explaining how the stimuli are used, and also how to cite work based on the stimuli. The stimuli and handbooks are arranged chronologically in terms of when they were created rather than topically, so it is necessary to browse through the files to find stimuli related to particular topics. We give liks to specific years as a bit of a shortcut.
  • 2001 Fieldmanual
  • 1999 Fieldmanual
  • 1996 Fieldmanual
  • 1995 Fieldmanual-1
  • 1995 Fieldmanual-2
  • 1992 Fieldmanual
  • SPACEKIT (june93)
  • Manual95
  • Intrinsi
  • COGNIKIT (july93)

Tools for Transcription of Data

• VoiceWalker is a glorified digital tape deck for the PC (Windows only). The program is available free from the Department of Linguistics of the University of California at Santa Barbara.

It has the added benefit of being able to systematically step (or "walk") through a recording, repeating short segments for a specified number of repetitions, then moving on to the next segment. The segments overlap, so that the transcriber does not become disoriented. Works with WAV files, Windows AVI files and Quicktime MOV files.

Standards recommendations

• DOBES technical recommendations (DOBES = Documentation of Endangered Languages)
• DOBES recommendations on language documentation
• E-Meld Best Practices in Digital Language Documentation

 Ethic and legal issues

• DOBES recommendations on legal and ethical issues
• U Leipzig ethic guidelines

Interlinear glossing tools and morpheme list production

• Toolbox (most widely used application for linguistic field workers; XML, Unicode (add Keyman and associated keyboards for easy use); Windows only, but Toolbox works great under VirtualPC 6 on Mac OS X Panther machines as well), loved by some but hated by others
• BITC (web-based, for multiple distributed users)
• Kura (multi-user, Unicode, XML; all platforms) Kura is a multi-user open-source linguistic database especially geared towards language description.
• SCALA (based on MS Access; for multiple users, with consistency check tools; supports import from Shoebox, the predecessor of Toolbox)
• Master FM (based on Filemaker, Mac and Windows compatible) Contact David Gil, MPI-EVA Leipzig. This is a database designed by Bradley Taylor and David Gil for the recording of linguistic data. It has been beta tested by a variety of users with varying needs, including linguistic field workers at the University of Delaware. It will be ready for public release some time in the near future.

Time-alignment tools

• ELAN (DOBES standard; Java-based, XML, Unicode; all platforms) Multimedia Annotator
• For other tools from the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, see their "Tools" webpage.

Tools for acoustical analysis

A variety of tools for acoustical analysis are available from the UCLA phonetics laboratory. Especially recommended for field linguists is Plotformants for creating useful formant charts. UCLA also sells a CD with a wide variety of tools for acoustical research, some of which bare useful for field linguists.

Metadata editors and browsers

• IMDI Metadata tools (DOBES standard, Java, XML, Unicode; all platforms)

Analysis

• PRAAT: Doing Phonetics by Computer The Praat speech analysis software, developed by Paul Boersma and David Weenink of the Institute of Phonetic Sciences, University of Amsterdam.

Elicitation stimuli

• MPI Nijmegen Stimuli Kit (annual releases)
• Pear Story (contact UCSB or U Leipzig linguistics departments)

 Equipment recommendations

• Microphones