This is a multi-faceted, multi-year project aimed at comprehensive documentation and description of the Lule Saami language that will meet the needs of researchers, educators, learners and the language community. There are several related, but independent , sub-projects:
Mávsulasj báhkogirjje: The Precious Dictionary
Mávsulasj báhko: The Precious Word
Mávsulasj moallánahka: The Precious Phrase
Mávsulasj giehtos: The Precious Narrative
This project uses established methodologies and cutting-edge te chnologies to undertake and encourage necessary and time-critical basic research on a seriously endangered language. It promotes better contact and understanding between the academic community and the Lule Saami speech community, and the resulting data an d networking infrastructures are guaranteed to have long-lasting effects on a range of academic disciplines. This project also develops several user-friendly tools that can used, directly, in language vitalization efforts.
Innovative characteristics of t his project include:
1) Focusing on a number of scientific and community needs
2) Using theme-based documentation that makes economical use of resources by exploiting natural interactions among sub-projects and with ongoing projects at several other inst itutions
3) Highlighting both diachronic and synchronic perspectives by combining legacy and contemporary data, as well as by including data from different generations
4) Concentrating on spoken (natural) rather than written (normalized) language
5) Featu ring systematic documentation that allows inter- and intra-speaker comparison