Recording a Word-List

One of the projects that we are working on here in Musoma is recording a word-list consisting of 1700 words. We are doing this for each of the languages with which we are working.

This word-list recording project consists of hiring a speaker of the language to help us clean up our database of these 1700 words. We then record each of those words. If it is a noun, we record both the singular and the plural version.

I have a nifty program on my computer that will split up a large sound file into the individual words. I just have to record the timing of when one word ends and it goes through and chops it all up. Sometimes I record the timing poorly and parts of a word need to be cut from one file and pasted to another. So, my computer desktop looks like this for a while after recording a word-list:

Including all the prep-work and clean-up after recording, it took me about 2 weeks to clean up and record the Kwaya 1700 word-list. Now, we have a very clean database that could more easily be turned into a dictionary. We also have a clean and clear recording of each of these words for anyone in the office (especially non-native speakers) to use for research or pronunciation help!