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<title>Endangered Languages Week 2008</title>
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<h1>Endangered Languages Week 2008</h1>
Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Project</p>
School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), Russell Square, London</p>
30th April to 8th May 2008</p>
<p>Through films, displays, discussions and workshops <b>Endangered
Languages Week 2008</b> presents
what is being done to document, archive and support endangered languages at
SOAS and around the world. There are approximately 7,000 languages spoken today
and <i>half</i> of them are under threat from larger languages.</p>
<p>The theme is “What can <i>WE</i> do?”, exploring how researchers,
students, language community members and members of the public can work
together to address the challenges of global language and cultural loss.</p>
Activities include:</p>
</p>
<ul>
<li>The UK premiere of the acclaimed new film <b>The
Linguists</b> shown at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival
<li><b>Meet an Endangered Language</b> where you can
come face-to-face with an endangered language, learn about where it is spoken
and why it is threatened, experience its culture, and pick up some basic words
and phrases.
<li><b>Open Day</b> when we open the doors of the Endangered Languages
Archive and you
can meet researchers, see displays of staff and student work, and experience
the latest digital technologies used to record, archive and support endangered
languages
<li>A debate on how to encourage personal action in support of language
diversity: <b>What is Your Language Footprint?</b>
<li>A full day workshop on <b>Engagement
and Activism in Endangered Languages Research</b>
<li>A specialist workshop on <b>Geographical
Information Systems for Linguists</b>
<li>A day of international films on
endangered languages with work from Australia, Denmark, Taiwan and UK
<li>Seminars on <b>moral and ethical issues in language fieldwork</b>
</ul>
Speakers include SOAS staff and Dr Lise
Dobrin (USA), Prof Maurizio Gnerre (Italy), Dr David Harrison (USA), Dr Cecelia
Ode (Netherlands), Dr Nicholas Ostler (UK), Prof Peter Sutton (Australia) and
Dr Ljuba Veselinova (Sweden).
Most events are free of charge and open to anyone who is interested in
endangered
languages. For further details visit our <a
href="http://www.hrelp.org">website</a> or write to elap AT soas.ac.uk
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