For this assignment I looked at the digital database called Ticha which has gathered manuscripts written in Colonial Zapotec languages. The site also has a vocabulary section that allows you to look up Zapotec words, pictures and transcriptions of these works, and even English and Spanish translations.
Sources Used:
The site primarily uses manuscripts in Colonial Zapotec Languages. Notably the site seems to use not only the manuscripts but also the transcriptions of these texts, which is more useful for processing of the data.
Processes:
This site starts from manuscripts, which are cataloged and tagged. They are more importantly connected to the text that is transcribed within them. The data is then sorted in many ways. The about me page says that they use a resource called FLEx (Fieldwork Languages Explorer) which is a system for grammatical and lexical analysis. The manuscripts are tagged with many different categories including year, document type, and the town.
Presentation:
This website presents each manuscript individually and allows for visitors to this site to click through different manuscripts and then see the information, transcriptions, and translations of these documents. It is a very navigable site, with the main three functions being transcribing, viewing manuscripts and looking through vocabulary entries.
Target Audience:
A large feature of this site is that it allows for untranscribed manuscripts to be transcribed. This would indicate that this resource is made for scholars and not really the general public. Another interesting feature of this resource is that it is in both Spanish and English which indicates that it might be more accessible to scholars in Mexico, where these documents are from.
The other reason this site might be for scholars is that it doesn’t allow visitors to search for translations from English into Zapotec, you can only search Zapotec words. This would indicate that you have to either know Zapotec or be working from a source material with Zapotec words.
Who Made this Site:
This project was made by a collection of linguists, historians, and digital humanity scholars from a University. But it also is overseen by an advisory board, made up of native Zapotec speakers and others who are a part of that community. I really appreciate the contribution from native speakers in this project as it shows that the creators have a commitment to listen to and work with the group being studied and engage in that specific perspective and history.
Remaining Questions:
This type of digital project makes me wonder about how a project can be collaborative. This one is truly very collaborative in that it allows the public to transcribe these manuscripts. But the what extent do projects have to be a product of a select group and how much of this project was done by certain groups or by the public collaborators?