The documentation of endangered languages: The case of Cankiri Poshas

This paper examines the methods and techniques used in fieldwork for documenting endangered languages in Anatolia, taking the Çankırı variety of the Posha language as a case in point. The data for the study were collected from Çankırı Poshas between 2010 and 2015. As pointed out in previous studies, the Posha language, including its regional variants, is endangered. However, documenting a minority language poses difficulties depending on the functions of the language in the community and the attitudes of the speakers toward their language. Sharing and discussing these challenges can contribute to the design of more methodologically sound future research and assist in identifying potentially misleading elements in existing data. In this context, this study offers a practice-informed theoretical perspective on the methods and techniques used in the documentation and analysis of an endangered language through examples from the Posha language.