Knowledge base · Part II — Sources, Conventions, Glossing, and Orthography · this topic as a network

8. The Oral-Literature Corpus and Spoken-Language Data

What types of connected-discourse data form the corpus of a grammar of Hokkaido Ainu?

8 sentences from 24 sources · every sentence names the pages it rests on

Oral literature as the primary documentary resource

What is the primary source of documentation for the grammar of Hokkaido Ainu?

The volume of audio and textual documentation preserved for Ainu is exceptionally large relative to other endangered languages (Nakagawa 2024: 14).

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The recording and publication tradition

How have Ainu oral narratives been recorded and published over time?

Bronisław Piłsudski documented Ainu oral folklore on wax phonograph cylinders in addition to handwritten notes (Majewicz 2022: 4.7), and his 1912 monograph represents the first substantial published collection of Sakhalin Ainu narrative texts with parallel translations (Nakagawa 2024: 81). Kindaichi's 1914 publication, recorded from Higashiuchi Chuzo, is the only published text of Sakhalin Ainu hawki epics (Nakagawa 2024: 82).

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Chiri Yukie and the pre-war foundations

What is the earliest published collection of Ainu oral literature and what are its linguistic features?

ci=ehorari okay=as.

1PL.EXCL=sit exist.PL=1PL.EXCL.S

‘I was sitting.’

Chiri Yukie 1923 · HOR

Continuing documentation: text series, corpora, and modern prose

What is the most extensively annotated single-narrator Hokkaido Ainu corpus in print?

Majewicz (1998) published parallel-translated Sakhalin Ainu materials collected by Piłsudski, comprising one ucaskoma, eleven tuita, and fifty inon itak (Nakagawa 2024: 82). Beginning in the 1980s, institutional series transcribing and translating audio recordings from diverse dialects were regularly published in Hokkaido (Nakagawa 2024: 101).

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Genre-conditioned grammar and the corpus as evidence

How do different genres of Ainu oral literature affect grammatical constructions?

sine kamuyyukar ku=ye so

one kamuy-yukar 1SG.A=tell FIN

‘Let me tell one kamuy yukar.’

Satō 2008 · CHI

oraun arpa=an ruwe ne.

and.then go=4.S track-POSS COP

‘And then (the protagonist) went — so it goes.’

Biratori Ainu oral literature 1969 · SAR

oro ta k=arpa wa, “Kokusai-gengo-nen” oruspe ku=ye ruwe ne.

there LOC 1SG=go CONJ “international-language-year” talk 1SG=say PERS COP

‘I went there and spoke about the International Year of Languages.’

Ainu Koraci 1991 · SAR

Dialect and genre coverage

Which dialects and genres are most represented in the corpus used for a grammar of Hokkaido Ainu?

Known Ainu oral literature materials exhibit a pronounced regional bias, with abundant texts from Hidaka and Iburi but very few from northern and eastern Hokkaido (Endō 2022: 10.5). The Saru dialect of Hidaka represents a direct modern descendant of Classical Ainu as preserved in heroic epics such as Itadorimaru (Shibatani 1990: 8).

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