Foundation for Endangered Languages

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7. Places to Go, on the Web and in the World

Endangered Languages homepage on LINGUIST A new Endangered Languages homepage on LINGUIST will bring together materials on the study of endangered languages to serve the needs of both the linguistic profession and communities interested in language revitalization or maintenance programs. As a start, the following pages (with appropriate links) are proposed:

(1) national and international professional or service organizations involved in the endangered language documentation and revitalization effort;

(2) community organizations which are working to preserve their own languages;

(3) "linguist wanted" ads; a list of communities and linguists in the field needing technical assistance (this page will be managed by Megan Crowhurst);

(4) an archive of on-line discussions and on-line conferences on ELs;

(5) programs of (traditional) conferences on ELs, and calls for papers;

(6) notices and reviews of books and journals on ELs and linguistic fieldwork;

(7) information about and reviews of fieldwork tools such as software and questionnaires;

(8) information on linguistics departments with a specialty in training fieldworkers (and which accept "Grammar of X"-type dissertations) and information on short-term training programs;

(9) pedagogical materials for fieldwork courses and other courses on linguistic diversity;

(10) funding opportunities for fieldwork projects;

(11) a list of people to contact who are currently working on particular languages/groups of languages, with their permission. (Alana Johns is building a page which will include 5-page descriptions of projects in progress authored by different fieldworkers which can be linked to this page.)

Interested linguists are invited to volunteer as the "curator" of any of these proposed pages (except #5, which has been claimed). Suggestions for additional pages are also welcome. Please contact Martha Ratliff (martha_ratliff(at)wayne.edu).

Endangered languages data at IPOLA site
13 Oct 1999:
LSA's Endangered Language Committee carried out a survey of endangered languages. The data obtained in this survey have been updated and at least some of the information is now available at the IPOLA website. It is still under construction but you are invited to check out the information that has so far been posted. The address is:

http://www.ipola.org/endangered/index.html

Akira Y. Yamamoto (akira(at)ukans.edu)
Dept of Anthropology, University of Kansas

About the artist site: House of the Small Languages
16 Sep 1999

The House of the Small Languages is growing up as a crossing point of all endangered languages. The small languages of North, Central and South America and Europe have now their own rooms in the House.

Many links from the languages enlarge the House to the community of all the people who are involved with the survey or the maintenance of small languages, with the recognition of the cultures and with the defense of their speakers.
But we are still missing important information:

  • a picture of a speaker/or people of each particularly language,
  • a spoken sample of the language we can use to create a sound clip.
  • URL of tribes, people, organizations, individuals to create external links between the languages and everybody involved in a way or another in the small languages.

    It is rather difficult to get contact with speakers of endangered languages or people (mostly linguists) who are in touch with them

    You can help witth sending to the address below or e-mail us what you can:

  • an useful address, or an useful link
  • a picture of a speaker
  • a cassette or a sound clip
  • languages updates

    With your collaboration, the house of the small languages will look better, so that people listening to the languages will feel the beauty of the human voices. Thank you in advance

    Friendly regards
    drs. Patrick-Henri Burgaud
    Zypendaalseweg 75,
    6814 CE Arnhem,
    the Netherlands
    tel / fax: 00 31 26 4438902

    e-mail: burgaud(at)burgaud.demon.nl
    site: http://www.burgaud.demon.nl

    Kuna List and Data Base

    Marta de Gerdes writes:
    Following a suggestion from Joel Sherzer, we are currently preparing a list server and a database for Kuna scholars and researchers. The project will be sponsored by the Museion Program of the University of Gothenburg (Sweden) in collaboration with the Ethnographic Museum of Gothenburg.

    If you have carried out research on the Kuna language and/or culture, we would be interested in hearing from you. Please send us:

    (a) Your e-mail address( and the addresses of other Kuna researchers you know of).

    (b) Titles and abstracts of your publications, if you have this information handy.

    (c) A brief caption about yourself including your name, institution, and area of research (history, religion, environmental studies, linguistics, gender studies, linguistic anthropology, aesthetics, or any other term that describes your research interest).

    Thanks in advance for your cooperation. We hope that these electronic resources will help advance Kuna scholarship in the next century. We think good communication is true to the Kuna spirit.

    Marta de Gerdes
    Museion Program for Research and Learning
    Goeteborgs Universitet
    marta.degerdes(at)tema.gu.se

    Expanded searching on Less Commonly Taught Lanuages database

    Dear subscribers to the LCTL project's teachers' listservs:

    As you probably know, the LCTL project at Univ of Minnesota's National Language Resource Center, maintains a database of where LCTLs are taught in North American colleges and universities. Up until now, you could request lists of institutions for specific languages (some included regional lists, too).

    		•  

    Now we have added the ability to search for specific languages (about 350 of them on our list) by state or province.

    We also have a new 'correction' and 'update' form, so that you may keep us informed of the latest information about your program and others that you know about.

    We welcome comments about both of these new services.

    LOOKUP:
    CORRECTION:

    The old method still works well (perhaps faster for straight language lookups):

    LOLFA wales.cymraeg (Datgan)
    Darren Wyn Rees
    Date: 18 September 1999

    The Welsh language newsgroup wales.cymraeg is now available in mailing list format, easily available to read for anyone with e-mail access.

    It appears that many people are experiencing difficulties in accessing/reading the newsgroup. For this reason, I decided to gateway the newsgroup to a mailing list - called 'LOLFA'.

    Posts appearing in wales.cymraeg will also appear - totally uncensored - in the LOLFA list. Posts sent to the LOLFA list will _not appear on wales.cymraeg, although a full gateway may be established in future.

    This is an experimental service, and so comments and feedback are much appreciated.

    To join the list, send a blank e-mail to
    lolfa-subscribe(at)gwebost.cymraeg.org

    To join the digest version of the list, e-mail to
    lolfa-digest-subscribe(at)gwebost.cymraeg.org

    To reach the list owners, e-mail
    lolfa-owner(at)gwebost.cymraeg.org

    To post to the list directly, e-mail
    lolfa(at)gwebost.cymraeg.org

    Please forward this message to anyone who may be interested. For convenience, you can simply quote the web address :

    http://www.cymraeg.org/menter-newydd/datgan-0056.html

    I hope this service is a useful contribution for the online Welsh language community.

    Darren Wyn Rees
    Menter Iaith y Wę --- 'Yr Iaith ar Waith ar y Wę'

    Karuk-Irish site

    15 Dec 1999:
    You might want to have a look at my Karuk-Irish site:
    http://www.eskimo.com/~donncha/karuk.html

    It's basically, I guess, a kind of honoring of one minority language by another. I had fun putting it together.
    Dennis King

    Chumash site

    15 Dec 1999:
    You may be interested in the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History's new "Chumash Life" website that contains some linguistic information, e.g., an interactive body "map" where Barbareno names pop up when the cursor is pointed at different body parts. There is also a section on placenames in the Santa Barbara and Goleta areas and a map of native Chumash towns with linguistically correct names in an orthography adapted for English speakers (as reconstructed by Kathryn Klar, Sally McLendon, Kenneth Whistler, Richard Applegate, etc.). The site may be found at:

    http://www.sbnature.org/chumash/

    John R. Johnson, Curator of Anthropology
    Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History

    Language and Popular Culture in Africa

    Call for Papers
    The Journal of Language and Popular Culture in Africa is a new, free, on-line journal published at the LPCA (Language and Popular Culture in Africa) web site. The Journal of Language and Popular Culture in Africa will publish data-centered studies on all aspects of African popular culture mediated by language. The Journal welcomes contributions from all relevant disciplines (anthropology, (socio-)linguistics, folklore, sociology, history, literature, etc.). Publication of the first issue of the Journal is scheduled for late Spring 2000. Please send your manuscripts to:

    Journal of Language and Popular Culture in Africa
    Vincent A. de Rooij, Editor in Charge Dept of Sociology and Anthropology
    University of Amsterdam O.Z. Achterburgwal 185
    1012 DK Amsterdam
    The Netherlands

    All submissions will be reviewed by members of the LPCA Advisory Board or by other experts. For more information on the Journal's Editorial Policy and details on how to submit, consult the JLPCA home page: http://www.pscw.uva.nl/lpca/jlpca/info.html

    Web Site
    Language and Popular Culture in Africa (LPCA) is a web site that aims to document and further the study of expressions of popular language and culture in Africa. LPCA makes available texts that serve as the medium of African popular culture and are at the same time part of this culture. If you want to make relevant materials available through the LPCA web site, please contact us by e-mail or regular mail at the addresses below.

    For more information on the LPCA site and how to contribute, see our home page: http://www.pscw.uva.nl/lpca/index.html

    Discussion List
    If you want to stay informed of new additions to the LPCA web site or if you want to discuss issues related to the web site's mission, you may want to subscribe to the LPCA-L discussion list (created on 8 October 1999). To subscribe, send the following command in the body of your e-mail message to :

    SUBSCRIBE LPCA-L

    and be sure to omit everything else from your message (e.g. signatures).

    Vincent A. de Rooij
    e-mail: vderooij(at)pscw.uva.nl
    Dept. of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Amsterdam, O.Z. Achterburgwal 185, 1012 DK Amsterdam, The Netherlands

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