Terrell A. Morgan
 

This interactive presentation serves to inaugurate a website which will make public a collection of dialectally varied speech samples from every Spanish-speaking country in the world.  The Catálogo is an archive of over a hundred videoclips indexed by country, by linguistic feature, and by conversational topic.  The vast majority of the recordings are of natural, conversational style, filmed on location in Spain and Latin America, and include Spanish speakers from a wide range of ages, ethnic groups, professions, and social classes.  The collection also features a number of indigenous languages (e.g., Quechua, Guaraní, Aymara, Nahuatl, Kaqchikel, Tzutujil, Miskito), as well as dozens of samples of Spanish as spoken in the United States—including Isleño Spanish from St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana and Judeo-Spanish (Ladino) from Cincinnati.
            The website has been designed for use by researchers, instructors, students, and those merely curious about linguistic and cultural diversity in the Hispanic world.  A complete transcription in standard orthography accompanies every sample, and the search mechanism makes it easy for users to identify clips relevant to their specific purposes.  Most importantly, perhaps, the collection can be updated and expanded constantly, and those in the profession are encouraged to offer suggestions as to how the site might better serve the needs of a broad public.  The SECOL demonstration will begin to solicit such information from a professional audience of linguists engaged in both teaching and research.
            Given the geographic coverage, ethnolinguistic diversity, investigative rigor, pedagogical usefulness, and practical accessibility of this project, it is expected to be a unique resource and one of special interest to linguists around the world.