Our Craigard film was the first we ever made, and we keep returning to it for inspiration!

This week’s exciting news, following our posts last Friday and Saturday, is the addition of optional subtitles to the Island Voices Gaelic videos on our YouTube channel. When we asked who would be interested in such a development on our social media last weekend, the positive reactions quickly came back in their hundreds. (Some folk also wanted the reassurance that this would not mean the withdrawal of un-subtitled videos or of the Clilstore transcripts – we have no intention of doing either!)

Given the strongly expressed enthusiasm, the response from the Speech Recognition research project team has been instant and impressive. Systems have been set up to enable the automatic subtitling of all the Gaelic output on our Island Voices Videos YouTube channel, and all 20 films in Series One are already done – with the Craigard documentary in first place on the playlist. Keep an eye out for swift progress on Series Two and other films in due course!

The way in is through the CC “Closed Caption” button. To see any subtitles at all, that needs to be on. (So the default viewing remains clear of any textual additions.) You should now see the Gaelic subtitles.

But that’s not all – once you have them on, there’s another clever little trick that enables Google Translate to work on them. If you go into Settings (next to CC) and then click on “subtitles” you’ll find an “auto-translate” option, which then opens a wide range of languages into which the Gaelic subtitles can be translated.

Machine translation remains an imperfect science, of course, so any expectation of error-free renderings will inevitably be disappointed. Nevertheless, even without this extra facility, Gaelic learners stand to benefit just from using the Gaelic subtitles alone as an extra support for their eyes to help their ears recognise what they’re hearing.

So here’s the Craigard film again – this time with the new multilingual subtitle functionality added.

Nor is this the first time that the Craigard film has taken the lead in test-driving new innovations and community adaptations. Donald Mackinnon’s re-voicing of the original films in Gaelic and English was our first step along the road to the re-purposing of many of our films in Other Tongues. And, much more recently, it’s the film Valentini Litsiou chose for her Greek contribution.

Donald in Gaelic:

Donald in English:

Valentini in Greek:

Who can say what the next innovation will be?

The University of the Highlands and Islands takes inspiration from Island Voices.

Perhaps a surprise to some, but not to us!

Here’s how it all comes back to Benbecula…

https://twitter.com/UHIPressOffice/status/1316717945377247233

2022 UPDATE: The press release is no longer available on UHI’s own webpages, but it survives under a “Language Bonanza“ heading on the We Love Stornoway site.

The tweeted press release touches on a couple of international projects that are being taken forward by UHI’s Language Sciences Institute. It doesn’t have the space to describe in detail how each builds on experience first gained in the Island Voices/Guthan nan Eilean project, and the closely linked development of Clilstore at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig. Both of these have grown from originally European Union-funded initiatives.

Island Voices followers who have time and inclination to read a bit more may find the additional information below of interest.

“Taisce bheo na nGael/Stòras Beò nan Gàidheal” is a joint Irish/Scottish Gaelic ethnographic retrieval project in which community-based expert speakers are recorded in their own homes. The first stage of the Scottish side of the project was completed shortly before lockdown began. There are now 15 hours of video material with Clilstore transcriptions on the Institute’s website, with access open to all. Project partners are now testing out alternative ways of making recordings online, in case continuing lockdown restrictions mean the Irish recording stage needs to be tackled in a different way.

The same issue has also arisen with the Institute’s “Mediating Multilingualism” project in India, in partnership with Amity University Haryana and the Indian network of Centres for Endangered Languages. With COVID-19 continuing to cause severe disruption to university-based activities there (including fieldwork), the project team has already been trialling the production of home-based recordings for publication on the same, highly flexible, online Clilstore platform. Six Indian languages have been recently added to its linguistic range. Some of these are featured in the short Gaelic film (subtitled in English) “Dà Dhùthaich Iomadh Cànan/Two Lands Many Languages” produced by the UHI team after visiting Shillong in North-East India at the end of 2019 (the International Year of Indigenous Languages). This is also available to view online on the project’s webpage.

Ding dong! “लंदन को जाने-वाली ब्रिटिश एयरवेज़ की उड़ान…. British Airways flight to London….”

For those with a keen ear for language, the international departures lounges of airports once provided rich listening, as announcements in multiple languages provided a constant reminder of linguistic diversity across the world. Then came COVID and the lockdowns. Almost overnight, international air travel came to a near-complete halt, and those multilingual moments have turned into ever more distant memories.

But our taste for linguistic adventure lives on, and physical lockdown has not disabled our capacity for creativity and innovation in responding to new communicative challenges, as our contributor Animesh Biswas has recently demonstrated, here and here. Nor is he alone! We now welcome a new addition to our Other Tongues collection with a Hindi version of our Windsurfing film by Rohini Tolsma.

Gordon Wells met Rohini, who is based in the Netherlands, at the 2019 NEHU International Language Fest for Indigenous and Endangered Languages in Shillong. The Netherlands is currently relaxing some of its most stringent lockdown restrictions, but in this exercise Rohini followed the same simple modus operandi as previous recent contributors, recording her voice on her phone, and sending the results to Gordon by Facebook Messenger.

Anyone listening will be struck by the clarity of Rohini’s diction, and may find themselves wondering how her voice somehow feels familiar. Well, if you’ve passed through Heathrow Terminal 5 or any other similar airport lounge, the chances are you have heard her before, as Rohini’s day job is to record the public announcements in Hindi for airports across the world. Island Voices have a Hebridean locus, but a truly international reach!

Here’s the film:

And here’s the wordlinked Clilstore transcript: Unit 8610

এই তথ্যচিত্রের মাধ্যমে সেইন্ট কিলডার সংক্ষিপ্ত বিবরণ তুলে ধরা হয়েছে। ল্যোওসের একটি পর্যটন সংস্থার সঙ্গে এই অভিযানটি সম্পন্ন হয়েছে। ভ্রমণের তালিকায় রয়েছে মূলদ্বীপের প্রাকৃতিক ও সাংস্কৃতিক পর্যটন। আটলান্টিক মহাসাগরের বুক চিরে এই অভিযানে দীর্ঘ সমুদ্রযাত্রার ক্লান্তি তো নেইই বরং আছে মন ভালো করা সব অসাধারণ দৃশ্য। নির্জন সমুদ্রসৈকত, অজস্র পাখিদের কোলাহল, প্রকৃতির নিবিড় ছোঁওয়া ও প্রাচীন মানব সভ্যতার ঐতিহাসিক উপাদান সব মিলিয়ে এক রোমাঞ্চকর অভিজ্ঞতা।

Bangla (Bengali) is the latest addition to Island Voices’ Other Tongues initiative, thanks to independent researcher Animesh Biswas, who can now add “film narrator” to his list of other talents! The language has hundreds of millions of speakers, yet the question may well be asked if any of them have previously had any access to information about the St Kilda dual natural and cultural heritage site in free-to-view online documentary format in their own language?!

On a linguistic note, it’s worth listening out for the pronunciation of placenames in the film. Animesh generally opted to go for Gaelic rather than English models, a process greatly assisted by the regular phonetic nature of Indian writing systems. Nach math a rinn e!

A Clilstore version with full wordlinked transcript and embedded video is available here: Unit 8568.

 

Christine Primrose will need little or no introduction for the Gaelic enthusiasts who follow Island Voices. A stellar singer, she has long been a leading light in the promotion of Gaelic music and the tradition which nurtures it. If, by chance, you are coming to acquaintance with her for the first time, this interview in English (with further useful embedded links) for Folk Radio will give you an indication of her central position in the world of Gaelic music.

In the clips below, she talks freely in Gaelic to Pàdruig Moireach – who also has Carloway roots – for the Stòras Beò nan Gàidheal project. A feast for the ears for anyone with a taste for good Lewis Gaelic!

In the first part, Christine first recalls her early childhood in Carloway, Lewis – a close community in which every house had a loom. She started school very young, but always remembers singing – whether to neighbours in their homes, or at community concerts when still a young girl. She talks about the pressure of performance and how to look after your voice. Choral singing is also discussed. Her early career through school, college, and work in Glasgow was marked by singing, culminating with the prize for “seann nòs” (a term which she questions) at the Mòd. (You can get a Clilstore transcript here: Unit 8434.)

In the second part, Christine talks about touring Ireland and the novel experience of presenting her songs outside her community, emphasising the importance of feeling to maintain authenticity. She is disciplined in her approach, while also bringing her own interpretation to a song. Care for the rhythm of the words enhances the story. Moving to Sabhal Mòr Ostaig enabled her to maintain her singing career, while helping to promote the Gaelic college. She enjoys teaching, and listening to singers from other traditions. She stresses the importance of giving young performers time to learn their craft before pressurising them to perform. Return visits to Carloway underline for her the importance of acknowledging change. (You can get a Clilstore transcript here: Unit 8435.)