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<DIV><FONT color=#000000>I would like to join the Advisory Board of the Language
Query Room. I am a native speaker of Kumeyaay and can be reached at this
email address.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000></FONT>Thank you.</DIV>
<DIV>Jon Meza</DIV>
<DIV>San Diego, CA</DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="BORDER-LEFT: #000000 solid 2px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><B>-----Original Message-----</B><BR><B>From:
</B>Doug Whalen <<A
href="mailto:whalen@alvin.haskins.yale.edu">whalen@alvin.haskins.yale.edu</A>><BR><B>To:
</B><A
href="mailto:endangered-languages-l@carmen.murdoch.edu.au">endangered-languages-l@carmen.murdoch.edu.au</A>
<<A
href="mailto:endangered-languages-l@carmen.murdoch.edu.au">endangered-languages-l@carmen.murdoch.edu.au</A>><BR><B>Date:
</B>Wednesday, July 03, 2002 1:26 PM<BR><B>Subject: </B>ELL: Language Query
Room Advisory Board<BR><BR></DIV></FONT>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 face=Times size=+2> 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>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 face=Times size=+2> 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 color=#000000 face=Times size=+2> Durbin
Feeling (Cherokee), Chair, LQR Advisory Board </FONT>
<dfeeling@ou.edu></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 face=Times size=+2> Douglas
H. Whalen, President, Endangered Language Fund </FONT>
<elf@haskins.yale.edu></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 face=Times
size=+2> </FONT></DIV><X-SIGSEP><PRE>-- </PRE></X-SIGSEP>
<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></BLOCKQUOTE></BODY></HTML>