The aim of language documentation is to provide a comprehensive record of the linguistic practices characteristic of a given speech community. Language documentation enables the creation of multipurpose, legacy data resources. This includes the following tasks:

• recording (hand written transcriptions, audio & video, photography)
• data capture (migrate analog materials to digital formats)
• data analysis (transcription, translation, annotation, and notation of metadata)
• archiving (creating archival objects, assigning access and storage rights)
• mobilization (distribution of data to various forms, including publication)

What is a language archive?

• a trusted repository created and maintained by an institution with a commitment to permanence and the long-term preservation of archived resources
• Will have clear policies for materials acquisition, cataloguing, dissemination, quality assurance, forward migration to new digital formats, disaster recovery

What can you archive? Any linguistic material including:

• Media- sound and video
• Graphics - picture and images
• Documents - fieldnotes, grammars, maps, etc.
• Structured data - e.g. time-aligned annotated transcriptions, databases
• Metadata, including structured data about your materials, typically in written text form

For more information on language documentation visit the website of Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Project