Dealing with data from West Nilotic languages

Abstract

Since 2005, the author has been involved in several projects aimed at investigating and documenting the Western Nilotic languages Dinka and Shilluk. Over the years he has come to distinguish primarily between two types of data, a distinction which is important to archiving in a manner that is audience-oriented. In this presentation he discusses the different kinds of data he is producing, and summarises how they are archived. The distinction between the different types of data is something he was not aware of at the outset. Nowadays the staff at Edinburgh DataShare are there to stimulate and support reflection and awareness on best practice, which he has found very helpful.