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new awards announced to document endangered languages
The National Endowment for the
Humanities (NEH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) yesterday announced
the award of five fellowships, 32 institutional grants, and six doctoral
dissertation research awards totaling $4.5 million in the agencies' ongoing
Documenting Endangered Languages (DEL) program.
This is the eighth round of their
campaign to document languages threatened with extinction. Experts estimate
that more than half of the approximately 7,000 currently-used human languages
are bound for oblivion in this century, and the window of opportunity for
high-quality language field documentation, they say, narrows with each passing
year.
These new DEL awards will support
digital documentation work on almost 30 endangered languages spoken in Asia,
Africa, Australia and the Americas; enhance the computational infrastructure of
the field; and provide training for the next generation of researchers.
It is important to document endangered
languages for the wealth of linguistic and cognitive information that they
offer. Advances in information technology allow for work on endangered
languages that has not previously been possible.
"Endangered languages are at risk
of becoming extinct," said NSF Assistant Director for Social, Behavioral
& Economic Sciences Myron Gutmann. "It is paramount that we create and
use advances of information technology and interdisciplinary science research
to ensure that this linguistic and cognitive information is sustained and a
comprehensive analysis is completed."
Some DEL projects seek to provide tools
to better facilitate the documentation of endangered languages.
Emily Bender of the University of
Washington will develop tools that use translated texts to help understand the
structure of a language more deeply than is possible without the aid of
technology.
Mark Liberman of the University of
Pennsylvania is piloting a project to use mobile telephones to collect larger
amounts of data on undocumented endangered languages than would ever be
possible through usual fieldwork.
Kevin Scannell of Saint Louis University
is developing computational resources based on material available on the internet
for over 1,200 languages. These tools will help linguists, software developers
and communities find texts and word frequencies, all of which will be of value
in understanding and sustaining the languages.
Julia Hirschberg of Columbia University
is developing a set of tools to generate pictures that will help in the
understanding of how people talk about the space around them. These will be
tested with speakers of Arrernte, a language of Australia.
Kristine Hildebrandt of Southern
Illinois University at Edwardsville will study four Tibeto-Burman languages of
Nepal. In addition to developing a linguistic description of the languages, she
will create a digital linguistic atlas and develop education projects in both
Nepal and her home university.
In addition to the development of tools,
the Documenting Endangered Languages program funds the creation of
dictionaries, grammars and digital archives. This work preserves and makes
accessible the language and the rich cultural information that it carries in
it. A number of DEL projects will create digital archives and dictionaries.
Anthony Woodbury of the University of
Texas at Austin is working to archive the very important Terry Kaufman
Collection of languages of Mexico. Terry Kaufman did linguistic fieldwork on
numerous languages of Mexico over his long career, and this archive of his work
will be an invaluable resource to all those who are interested.
Daryl Baldwin of Miami University in
Ohio is building an on-line dictionary of the Algonquian language, Illinois,
working from an 18th-century dictionary. This is the oldest recorded written
work on this language, now being revitalized in Oklahoma, and it is of great
scientific merit in helping researchers to better understand the history of the
language and its place in the language family.
Shannon Bischoff of Purdue University
and Amy Fountain of the University of Arizona are collaborating in developing
on-line digital resources of Coeur d'Alene, a language formerly spoken in Idaho
but which has no fluent speakers. The language is well documented, but the
resources are not easily available. These digital archives will allow access to
this material.
Jimmy Goodtracks runs the Baxoje Jiwere
Language Project. With prior NSF funding, he has developed an encyclopedic
dictionary of Baxoje Jiwere (Chiwere) that is spoken in Oklahoma. This project
will allow for the creation of an audio archive that will be of great value to
scholars interested in this and related languages. Chiwere holds a special
place in the language family and to a number of people in the Chiwere community
who are interested in learning their ancestral tongue.
Jonathan Amith of Gettysburg College
leads a Nahuatl language documentation project in Mexico, where the researchers
are particularly interested in developing a grammar that includes rich
information on ethnobiology. The research team includes ethnobiologists as well
as linguists.
José Antonio Mazzotti of Tufts
University leads a team involved in documentation of Isconahua, a language of
Peru with only around a dozen speakers. The team will document the language
through the development of an audiovisual database and will also train both
students from Tufts and members of the Isconahua community to do language
documentation.
Siri Tuttle of the University of Alaska
Fairbanks will develop an electronic database of sentence structures in Alaskan
Athabascan languages, enabling additional fieldwork and a deeper understanding
of these languages.
Timothy Montler of the University of
North Texas is compiling a comprehensive on-line dictionary of Saanich, the
only dialect of Northern Straits Salish in Vancouver Island, British Columbia,
to have a small group of first-language speakers.
A second DEL fellowship will enable John
Keegan to enhance a database of approximately 17 Sara languages spoken
primarily in Southern Chad. Besides adding new meanings, audio recordings and
descriptions of distinctive aspects of the phonology and morphology of these
languages, all of the data will be permanently archived.
Several scholars aim to produce grammars
of languages. For instance, abriela Caballero-Hernández of the University of
California San Diego will write a reference grammar of the Mexican language,
Choguita Rarámuri (Tarahumara).
Doctoral dissertation awards will allow
for further documentation of languages.
Emily Gasser, under the direction of
Claire Bowern of Yale University, is involved in documenting Wamesa, an
Austronesian language of Indonesia. Gasser will spend six months doing
fieldwork, and will write a reference grammar, focusing on interesting aspects
of the sound structure and word structure of the language.
Chris Donlay, under the direction of
Carol Genetti of the University of California Santa Barbara, will document
Katso, a language in China with 5,000 speakers. Speakers of this language have
long been in contact with speakers of other languages and this research project
will contribute to the understanding of language contact and change.
A major goal of DEL is to enhance the
training of both academic linguists and community members in documentary
linguistics. A number of recently awarded DEL projects support this goal.
Another DEL grant will enable Lisa
Conathan and Leanne Hinton to hold a Breath of Life Workshop at the National
Museum of the American Indian in 2013, following up on the successful workshop
held in 2011. This workshop will bring in members of indigenous communities
from across the country to learn how to use archival materials about their
languages.
Bruce Cain of the Ahtna Heritage
Foundation is organizing Breath of Life workshops to train speakers to use the
rich documentation of the Ahtna language of Alaska, as well as to develop
materials for teaching the language.
Grants to conferences also support
training. For instance, Andrea Berez of the University of Hawai'i will organize
a series of master classes on topics such as ethnomusicology, kinship systems,
and oral history at the Third International Conference on Language
Documentation and Conservation. This training will enhance the quality of
fieldwork.
A complete listing of this year's awards
follows.
Fellowships ($50,400 each. Awarded by
NEH):
Ann Gagliardi, "Acquiring an
Endangered Language: A corpus of child directed and child produced Tsez"
John Keegan, "Sara Language
Database Project, Phase Two"
Catherine O'Connor, Boston University,
"Documentation of Northern Pomo"
Aviva Shimelman, "Documentation of
the five southern dialects of Yauyos"
Rosa Vallejos, University of Oregon
Eugene, "Kokama: Trilingual dictionary, pedagogical grammar, and text
corpus with video files"
Institutional Grants (awarded by NSF or
NEH, as indicated):
Jocelyn Ahlers, Kawaiisu Language and
Cultural Center, "Kawaiisu Conversations and Landscapes: Digital
Documentation, Access, and Archiving," $124,980 (NSF)
Jonathan Amith, Gettysburg College,
"Nahuatl Language Documentation Project: Sierra Norte de Puebla,"
$24,800 (NSF)
Daryl Baldwin, Miami University,
"Dictionary of the Miami-Illinois Language: the Inokaatawaakani,"
$124,292 (NEH)
Emily Bender, University of Washington,
"AGGREGATION: Automatic Generation of Grammars for Endangered Languages
from Glosses and Typological Information," $224,039 (NSF)
Andrea Berez, University of Hawai'i,
"Master Class Series at the 3rd International Conference on Language Documentation
and Conservation," $27,380 (NSF)
Shannon Bischoff, Purdue University,
"Collaborative Research: Coeur d'Alene Online Digital Resources,"
$94,029 (NSF)
Eugene Buckley, University of
Pennsylvania, "Kashaya Database and Dictionary," $203,738 (NEH)
Gabriela Caballero-Hernández, University
of California San Diego, "A Reference Grammar of Choguita Rarámuri
(Tarahumara)," $162,154 (NSF)
Bruce Cain, Ahtna Heritage Foundation,
"Ahtna Language Infrastructure and Training," $99,067 (NSF)
Lyle Campbell & Katie Butler,
University of Hawai'i, "Regional Survey of Miqie: An Endangered Yi
Language of Yunnan," $5,843 (NSF)
Shobhana Chelliah, University of North
Texas, "Lamkang Lexical Database and Online Dictionary (LMK),"
$295,926 (NSF)
Lisa Conathan, Endangered Language Fund,
"Breath of Life Archival Institute for Indigenous Languages,"
$172,824 (NSF)
Jeffrey Davis, University of Texas
Knoxville, "American Indian Sign Language Conference 2012," $56,106
(NSF)
Amy Fountain, University of Arizona,
"Collaborative Research: Coeur d'Alene Online Digital Resources,"
$27,199 (NSF)
Jeffrey Good, SUNY at Buffalo,
"US-Cameroon Workshop on Sociolinguistic Language Documentation in
Sub-Saharan Africa in Conjunction with the Seventh World Congress of African
Linguistics, August 2012," $46,594 (NSF)
Jimm Goodtracks, Baxoje Jiwere Language
Project, "Chiwere Audio Archive Project," $224,309 (NSF)
Kristine Hildebrandt, Southern Illinois
University at Edwardsville, "CAREER: Documenting the Languages of Manang,
Nepal for Local and International Impact," $400,000 (NSF)
Julia Hirschberg, Columbia University,
"Using Computational Tools to Facilitate Corpus Collection and Language
Use in Arrernte," $98,210 (NSF)
Linda Langley, McNeese State University,
"Akostiniich Kowassaati/Understanding Koasati," $131,572 (NSF)
Mark Liberman, University of
Pennsylvania, "Language Preservation 2.0: Crowdsourcing Oral Language
Documentation using Mobile Devices," $101,501 (NSF)
José Antonio Mazzotti, Tufts University,
"Documenting Isconahua in Peru: An Interdisciplinary Project,"
$165,120 (NSF)
Teresa McCarty, Arizona State
University, "RAPID: Documenting Critically Endangered Mojave Bird Songs in
Authentic Cultural Contexts," $25,000 (NSF)
Timothy Montler, University of North
Texas, "Saanich Dictionary and Electronic Text Archive," $349,033
(NEH)
Susan Penfield, University of Arizona,
"Interdisciplinary Approaches to Endangered Language Documentation,"
$13,961 (NSF)
Kevin Scannell, Saint Louis University,
"Web corpora and computational resources for endangered languages,"
$89,513 (NSF)
Wilson Silva, University of Rochester,
"Desano Collaborative Project: Collection of Audio-Video Material and
Texts," $70,937 (NEH)
John Singler, New York University,
"Documentation of the Vlashki/Zheyanski Language," $190,394 (NSF)
Daniel Suslak, Speaking Place, "A
Critical Audiovisual Documentation of Endangered Ayook Maize Cultivation
Practices and Language with Dual Linguistics and Genetics Applications,"
$64,393 (NSF)
Siri Tuttle, University of Alaska
Fairbanks, "Alaskan Athabascan Grammar Database Development: Koyukon,
Lower Tanana, and Upper Tanana," $120,521 (NSF)
Edward Vajda, Wastern Washington
University, "Athabaskan Conference 2012," $14,544 (NSF)
Douglas Whalen, Haskins Laboratories,
"From Endangered Language Documentation to Phonetic Documentation,"
$64,026 (NSF)
Anthony Woodbury, University of Texas at
Austin, "Archiving the Terrence Kaufman Collection," $245,752 (NSF)
Doctoral Dissertation awards (awarded by
NSF) [the first name is the faculty advisor, the second name is the graduate
student conducting the dissertation research]:
Claire Bowern & Emily Gasser, Yale
University, "Language Documentation of Wamesa," $12,000
Lyle Campbell & Tamrika
Khvtisiashvili, University of Utah, "Documentation and Description of the
Khinalug Language," $11,990
Barbara Fox & Nicholas Williams,
University of Colorado at Boulder, "Grammar and Interaction in Kula, a
non-Austronesian Language of Eastern Indonesia," $12,000
Carol Genetti & Chris Donlay,
University of California Santa Barbara, "A Grammar of the Katso Language
in Yunnan, China," $15,078
Brent Henderson & Todd Hughes,
University of Florida, "Pronominal Clitics in Pakistani Wakhi,"
$14,910
Doris Payne & Jaime Pena, University
of Oregon Eugene, "A Grammar of Huambisa," $15,120
Postdoctoral Fellowship (NSF):
Alessandro Jaker, "Phonetics and
Phonology of two Northern Athabaskan Languages," $131,000 (NSF)
-NSF-
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