Documentation of the language and biological knowledge of the Solega

Language	Solega
Depositor	Aung Si
Affiliation	School of Languages and Linguistics, University of Melbourne
Location	India
Collection ID	0150
Grant ID	SG0063
Funding Body	ELDP
Collection Status	Collection online
Landing Page Handle	http://hdl.handle.net/2196/27e62995-4dfd-4e7b-95f8-9aead97bfd42

 

Summary of the collection

This is a preliminary documentation of the Dravidian language Solega, and includes audio and video material, as well as colour photographs of the plants, animals and landscapes known to the Solega people. A variety of speech genres has been documented, including conversations, narrations, folksongs and ritual language. Many of the longer recordings deal with knowledge that is in danger of disappearing from the Solega collective memory – this includes recollections of how the forest once was before the invasion of the woody weed Lantana, knowledge of swidden farming and the semi-nomadic lifestyle that was practiced until the 1970s, the names of now-rare plants and animals, the songs and rituals that are now remembered by only a few, and the traditional medicines that have been driven to extinction by non-indigenous plants.

 

Group represented

Aidu Kula (Five-clan) Solega

 

Language information

Sholaga in Ethnologue, Soliga elewhere

 

Special characteristics

Different speech genres, traditional ecological knowledge, photographs of named plants and animals, a complete recording of the Haduke song-cycle

 

Collection history

This collection originates in fieldwork carried out between November 2008 and September 2011, as part of a PhD carried out at the Australian National University, Canberra. The depositor spent a total of approximately 12 months at the field site, over three separate visits. The Five-Clan Solega, whose language is documented in this deposited, say that they are linguistically and culturally distinct from the Elu Kula (Seven-Clan) Solega who live mainly in the state of Tamil Nadu.

 

Acknowledgement and citation

To refer to any data from the collection, please cite as follows:

Si, Aung. 2012. Documentation of the language and biological knowledge of the Solega. Endangered Languages Archive. Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/2196/00-0000-0000-0002-198E-8. Accessed on [insert date here].