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Board</title></head><body>
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The Endangered Language Fund, along with the Linguist List, is
creating a new function for language communities and linguists called
the Language Query Room (LQR). This effort is being funded by a
grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF). This note
is to give you a preview of the LQR and to ask for volunteers for an
advisory board of native speakers.<br>
The LQR will be a space where questions about
how to say things in different endangered languages can be posted.
Someone who needs to have a form translated, typically a language
learner or a linguist, will post a query via a form at the LQR site.
An automatic email will be sent to everyone who has registered an
interest in that language. If a native speaker feels like
responding, they will use a similar form on the site, and everyone on
that language's list will be informed that new material is present.
We hope to have both text (in the native orthography) and audio
supported. All of the material will be archived for future
searching. <br>
Our current plan is to recognize the
contribution of the native speaker volunteers as official "Language
Consultants." They will have their status listed as such on LQR, and
a brief biography will be posted (if desired). The primary
motivation is the interest in the language and the desire to see it
more widely recognized by allowing progress to be made on it outside
of the field. We are also hoping to have an endangered language
chat room, which would allow speakers of the designated languages to
converse with each other, with the only "cost" being to have the
discussions archived. We will have a pop-up keyboard that will
make input of unusual orthographies much simpler (we hope), for those
languages that have such an orthography.<br>
As we work on the design of the LQR, we want
to make it as useful to the native communities as possible. To
help with that effort, we are assembling an advisory board, composed
of speakers of endangered languages. We would like to invite any
who qualify to contact us about joining the board. The criteria
are:<br>
* Is a native speaker of and
endangered language (since we already have the viewpoint of the
professional linguist well represented).<br>
* Has email and internet access
(since the LQR will only exist on the web, and the advisory board will
only have virtual meetings by email).<br>
* Is fluent in English (since the
membership is intended to be world-wide and those of us on the grant
have only English as an interlanguage).<br>
* Is able to spend a few hours over
the next year reading email and contributing an opinion about the best
way to make the LQR function (the time demands are small and on an
email schedule rather than a phone or meeting schedule).<br>
We are putting out this initial request over
relevant lists (Linguist and Endangered Languages), but if you know of
someone who meets the criteria and is not on these lists, please
forward it to them so that we can find the largest pool of candidates
possible.<br>
Those who do not meet these criteria but who
have comments about the LQR are welcome to contact us as well, at the
email addresses below.<br>
We hope to have a functioning site up this
year. The LQR will, with luck, expand the range of language
material that is used in linguistic theorizing and enhance the stature
of the endangered languages in the process.</font></div>
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We look forward to hearing from all interested parties, and we will
announce the LQR itself as soon as it is available.</font></div>
<div><font face="Times" size="+2" color="#000000">
Durbin Feeling (Cherokee), Chair, LQR Advisory Board </font>
<dfeeling@ou.edu></div>
<div><font face="Times" size="+2" color="#000000">
Douglas H. Whalen, President, Endangered Language Fund </font>
<elf@haskins.yale.edu></div>
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<div>Doug Whalen (whalen@haskins.yale.edu)<br>
Haskins Laboratories<br>
270 Crown St.<br>
New Haven, CT 06511<br>
203-865-6163, ext. 234<br>
FAX: 203-865-8963<br>
http://www.haskins.yale.edu/</div>
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