Audio Narration Project

About the Audio Narration Project

We are looking for folks who can read Dakota/Lakota to join our project to bring written materials back to life. Wóoyake is full of written stories, journals, and letters written by Dakota/Lakota speakers throughout history, and we can learn a lot from. We want to create audio versions of these materials so that our community can easily access them. If you have the ability and interest in reading aloud in Dakota/Lakota, we invite you to contribute!

Choosing a text

There are multiple ways to browse content on Wóoyake. One way to find written material that needs recording is to go to Browse Recordings and then select “Written” from the “By Original Format” in the list of filters. This will exclude audiovisual recordings from the results display, leaving letters, newspapers, typescripts, and more for you to choose from.

Not all content has been fully transliterated into the Suggested Lakota Orthography (SLO). If you feel more comfortable reading SLO, you exclude other results by selecting “Level 5” under “Research Status” in the list of filters. If you are comfortable reading and accurately pronouncing all orthographies, you don’t need to filter your results.

Look for a text that matches your interests, comfort level, and dialect preference (if any). Once you’ve found a good one, scroll to the bottom of the Recording and leave a comment. This will let others know that you’re working on it, and prevent duplicate lines of effort.

More written texts are being uploaded weekly, so check back regularly.

Rehearsing the text

We encourage you to review the slides from the Audio Narration trainings for tips on how to prepare a strong narration. You can record a draft any time on your phone (as a video or voice note) and uploading it here for us to take a listen. We can provide feedback by email.

Scheduling studio time

When you are ready to record professionally, schedule a 30-minute virtual studio session on our calendar here. If you’ve chosen shorter texts, please come ready with multiple texts to make the most of your time, although we can record as many takes as needed. If you have chosen a longer text, please schedule multiple sessions (ideally back-to-back).

If you enjoy the experience, you are welcome to rehearse as many texts and schedule as many studio sessions as you like!

Payment

You will be paid $60 per 30-minute studio session. This assumes you have rehearsed and uploaded at least one draft. If you are late to a session, we will have to pro-rate the payment; if you are more than 15 minutes late, we will have to cancel the session.

Rights

The narrations you record will be uploaded to wooyake.org, which can be accessed by any members of Očhéthi Šakówiŋ communities. In this way, your voice will help other learners access and understand these precious written materials.