Historical linguistics seminar; On the reconstruction of Indo-European (Hamp, 1989-90)

Barbara Need used two audiocassette recorders to record the lectures; therefore (with one exception), there are two series of recordings of each one: 1) a series done on a Sony TC-D5 PRO II recorder, and 2) a series done on a TASCAM student recorder (“TSR”). (There are apparently no Sony recordings for the lecture of 11/20/89; the lecture for 2/19/90--if it took place--was not recorded.) Barbara expressly began each series at a different time from the other in order to overlap the recordings and therefore not lose any content during the pauses for change-overs. All of the recording stock she used consisted of normal-bias 60-minute audiocassettes, mostly Maxell UDI-60s. For digtitizing, JJT played back the cassettes on a Sony TC-WR11ES dual deck; starting with file "eng-hamp-040390d" he switched to a Sony TC-D5 PRO II recorder. He fed the analog signals into a Fireface 400 analog-to-digital converter and created the digital files using the Peak Pro 5.2 application. The files made from the Sony series of recordings are coded “a”, “b” , “c” and (rarely) “cc” (example: eng-hamp-050890a.wav); the TASCAM series is coded “d”, “e”, “f”, and “g”. For the most part, the lectures may be listened to without any editing: the biggest flaw in the originals are the frequent static pops introduced into the tapes by the TASCAM during the dry winter months. The “TSR-2” and “TSR-3” tapes of 2/8/90 are inaudible and have not been digitized. Since Hamp often did not pronounce the examples of words he wrote on the blackboard, future transcribers of the lectures will want to consult Karen Landahl's and Barbara Need's class notes to supply these examples. (These two sets of notes have now been scanned.--JJT 09-10-15.) JJT has preserved his notes from the digitizing sessions.