Digital Humanities

Projects

Washo Documentation Project

Washo is a severely moribund language spoken by fewer than 15 elderly speakers in an area around Lake Tahoe, California and Nevada. The Washo Documentation Project is a comprehensive multimedia documentation of the Washo language, partly funded by the National Science Foundation, in collaboration with the Wa:šiw Wagayay Mangal (the official Washo language school of the tribe), and various elders in the Dresslerville and Woodfords communities.

Our current effort has been focused on compiling an analytical and cultural dictionary of the Washo language. This dictionary will include, in addition to English-Washo and Washo-English glosses, morphological analysis, and substantial references to audio and textual information.

In the next phase of the project, we plan to incorporate textual information into the database. The texts will be both early and contemporary, including the published texts collected by Alfred Kroeber (1907), Grace Dangberg (1927), and Robert H. Lowie (1963) in the early twentieth century and contemporary texts currently collected by the Washo Documentation Project research team.

Top: Wireframe image of the tessellated 3D digital model of the South Cave, Northern Xiangtangshan. Xiangtangshan Caves Project, Center for the Art of East Asia, Department of Art History.