Kusunda 250 Word List Audio Files

This data set contains 2 zip files and 3 pdf files containing the cut sound files of the elicited 250-concept word list (plus numerous additional concepts and lexical items) recorded with the last two Kusunda speakers from Nepal, Gyani Maiya Sen Kusunda and Kamala Khatri (Sen Kusunda), on in late July and early August 2019, in Kathmandu, Nepal.

As per our knowledge, these are the first recordings of Kusunda that are available in the public domain.

The zip files, when unpacked, will reveal several hundreds of cut sound files. At least the concepts from the list are triple repeated. There are also numerous additional concepts on recording. The pdf files contain explanations regarding the elicited concepts as well as the way in which the forms of the two speakers were used to come to an underlying form, a 'reconstruction' of some sorts. 

The file numbers of the individual sound files refer to both the speakers (GM, K), to the date of recording and the exact origin file number. More information regarding a certain concept or pronunciation can be found in these respective origin sound files.

Please note that the actual transcriptions in IPA may differ between the file names of the individual sound recordings, the individual speaker's pdf file, and the aggregated pdf file. We request users of these data to take the transcriptions in the aggregated pdf file as the most recent ones, or alternatively contact us for the most recent, updated transcriptions.

This research was funded by a 2,000 USD grant from the Endangered Language Fund (http://www.endangeredlanguagefund.org/), a 700 euro contribution by the European Research Council Starting Grant 715618 “Computer-Assisted Language Comparison” (http://calc.digling.org), and a total of 2,320 euros raised through crowdfunding at GoFundMe (https://www.gofundme.com/f/saving-the-kusunda-language-in-nepal). Many thanks to all generous contributors.

This material is made freely available to everyone for informative or scientific purposes as long as the source (this DOI) / the collectors are properly credited. Please note that use of the material for commercial purposes of any kind, which includes conversion into commercial audio-visual media (documentaries etc.), (paid) public screening other than for educational purposes, storage and dissemination through sites that require registration & payment for access, or sites that rely on advertisement (including YouTube) is not permitted without specific written consent from the speakers and their community, obtained through the collectors of the material. By downloading our material, you agree to these restrictions.

This data set falls under the Create Commons Attribution 4.0 International / Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA) license. This license lets you remix, tweak, and build upon this work non-commercially, as long as you credit us and license your new creations under the identical terms. License Deed on https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/. Legal Code on https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/legalcode.

We greatly value feedback, suggestions, advice, analysis etc. based on this material which will help in the description of the Kusunda language, especially any comments and suggestions that will enable the revitalisation of the language, including a standardisation of the phonology and a phonologically consistent but also practical orthography in both देवनागरी Devanāgarī and Roman script.

Uday Raj Aaley: aarambhkhabar (at) gmail (dot) com

Tim Bodt: bodttim (at) gmail (dot) com