Database Construction
We built and fine-tuned the Distance Research Environment, an online interface for creating content in the database both in the office and from afar. We found we needed different layouts for different purposes, including the colonial Nahuatl terms, audio, video, pictography, and modern words with their definitions and examples of usage. We tested and evaluated usage and were able to make satisfactory adjustments, but testing will evolve as the lexicon continues to grow.
Dissemination
We are making the lexicon available on line as it grows. We have designed and built a website that draws from our databases. The URL for the English-language interface is http://whp.uoregon.edu/dictionaries/nahuatl/. We have also created interfaces for Spanish speakers and Nahuatl speakers; all have access from the same entry page. Each interface draws slightly different material from the database fields, emphasizing the resources that are geared for the various speakers. One of the strengths of this lexicon is the Nahuatl interface, aimed at native speakers, for native speakers have never had access before to a Nahuatl to Nahuatl dictionary, with definitions in Nahuatl, as opposed to Spanish translations.
Google Analytics
We have employed Google Analytics to track public access to our online websites. We are pleased to see usage has been expanding rapidly and to see users come from around the globe, even though the lexicon is still growing and nowhere near complete. Between January 1, 2010 and September 1, 2010, we have had nearly 5,000 visits, by over 3,500 unique visitors from 72 countries or territories, with nearly 28,000 individual page views (that’s an average of nearly six pages per visit). In other words, the majority of people are not landing on the first page and then exiting, but they are actually doing searches and reading the results. People in the United States and Mexico make up our majority of users, with significant numbers also from Europe, Canada, and South America. It is also worth noting that visitors additionally come from Japan, India, Morocco, China, and Southeast Asia.
Expansion
In our first year we have expanded the lexicon with both colonial and modern Eastern Huastecan Nahuatl words. The Oregon team has added 1669 new terms found in colonial manuscripts. We also added hundreds of attestations of these new words and already existing words (a total of more than 6400 words), inserting phrases in colonial Nahuatl along with translations into colonial and modern Spanish and into modern English. We have drawn so far from 32 published books, harvesting no more than 10% of a given work (falling within Fair Use guidelines), except where we had permission to exceed that limitation. A bibliography will be provided upon request.
We have also added 3000 terms of modern Eastern Huastecan Nahuatl. These entries were provided by the team at the university in Zacatecas, Mexico, as part of a sub-contract with John Sullivan. They not only include a definition in Nahuatl, but also an example of usage, parts of speech, and simple English and Spanish translations.
In addition, we have digitized and proofread Frances Karttunen’s Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl, with the permission of the author and the publisher. This work contains both colonial and modern Nahuatl. We are still entering this data in our database. Similarly, we are gradually entering terms from Fray Alonso de Molina’s Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana (1571), adding translations to English.
More recently, we have begun harvesting examples of modern Huastecan Nahuatl posted to Twitter by native speakers. John Sullivan began tweeting in June 2010, and in late August the entire team of native speakers began posting in Nahuatl. We are adding English translations, but we may also seek Spanish translations from the team in the future, as they finish more central tasks. Raul Macuil, a native speaker from Tlaxcala has also recently begun putting Nahuatl-language messages on his Facebook page. We may work with him in the future to obtain examples from his growing repertoire.
Integration
We have built an interface for bridging the older and modern Nahuatl. Using Filemaker Pro, we created a shortcut that brought to light words that matched in their first three letters. We are checking these manually to determine whether, indeed, these are the same words or whether an older Nahuatl version has at least a place in the etymology of a modern term.
We had hoped to have this integration complete by the end of Year 1, but it is ongoing. Fortunately, we are ahead of schedule with the expansion of older Nahuatl word entries and attestations of older Nahuatl in manuscripts, so we can shift some of that attention now to the integration effort.
Diversification
Taking advantage of technological assistance from a team of students at the University of Oregon, we began experimenting with the diversification of the dictionary, exploring the possibilities of adding audio recordings of words, video recordings of conversations that contain a given word, and examples of pictographic representations of terms and larger expressions from pictorial manuscripts. This work will continue into Years 2 & 3.
As a part of these experiments, we added 20 audio files, mostly testing how to insert them into the database and how to structure the associated metadata. It will be in Year 3 that we work to improve the quality of the recordings and the quantity, as well. At this stage, and with permission, we experimented with recordings from the Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America at the University of Texas.
Linking to videos in Nahuatl posted by native speakers, we added video examples associated with 26 different words in our lexicon. Again, we were testing how to insert video clips and links into the database and how to structure the associated metadata.
Taking images from manuscripts, we added 185 pictographic examples to the lexicon, linking them to existing terms. We also created fields for transcriptions and translations, and source citations.
In the remaining two years of the grant, these enhancement to our textual word entries will continue.