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--></style><title>Endangered Language Fund Grants,
2001</title></head><body>
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ELF Awards 10 Grants in 2001<br>
<br>
The Endangered Language Fund is pleased to announce
the grants<br>
awarded in 2001. Thanks to the generosity of our members, we were<br>
able to fund ten of the sixty proposals that we received this year.
The<br>
selection was harder than ever, as more and more worthy proposals
are<br>
submitted. We hope to be able to expand our fundraising so that a
larger<br>
proportion of these efforts can be funded.<br>
<br>
Two projects were funded for work in Oklahoma,
thanks to the<br>
generosity of the Kerr Foundation. As in the previous year, the<br>
Foundation's grant allowed us to promote work in this
language-rich<br>
portion of the U.S. One grant, spearheaded by Joyce Twins, will
allow<br>
the Cheyenne-Arapaho tribe to record materials for the teaching of<br>
Cheyenne. Another grant will allow Justin Neely, a member of the<br>
Citizen Potawatomi Nation, to apprentice himself to the some of the
last<br>
truly fluent speakers of Potawatomi. Both of these projects will
result in<br>
the collection of material that will soon be irreplaceable.<br>
<br>
We invite you to become a member, to help us stem
the tide of<br>
language loss. Pick up a form at
http://www.ling.yale.edu/~elf/join.html.<br>
<br>
Here are the ten awardees:<br>
<br>
Justin T. Neely (Citizen Potawatomi Nation),
Potawatomi Language<br>
Preservation and Apprenticeship Program<br>
The Citizen Potawatomi Nation is centered at a
reservation in<br>
Shawnee, Oklahoma. Neely will apprentice himself to two elders
fluent<br>
in the language. These master-apprentice programs have been among
the<br>
most successful for continuing a language tradition when the
youngest<br>
generation has not learned the language from childhood. Eventually,
his<br>
efforts will be recorded and used as a basis for language
instruction<br>
material.<br>
<br>
Mary D. Stewart (Stó:lo Nation), Preservation and
Revitalization of<br>
the Upriver Halq'eméylem Dialect Language within the Family
Entity<br>
Upriver Halq'eméylem (Halkomelem) is a Salishan
language of the<br>
Central Coast branch. Only five elders still fluently speak the
language.<br>
The present project will bring together words and phrases into
interactive<br>
language resources that will be designed to bring young children
(birth <br>
to age 6) into contact with the language through the entirety of the
family<br>
unit. Audio tapes will be created, and there will be instruction
booklets<br>
geared toward children and parents.<br>
<br>
Angela M. Nonaka (UCLA), Saving Signs from Bhan
Khor: <br>
Documentation and Preservation of an Indigenous Sign Language in<br>
Thailand<br>
The similarities and differences between spoken and
signed<br>
languages, and the progress of their endangerment, are relatively<br>
unexplored in linguistic science. The present proposal will study the
Ban<br>
Khor Sign Language, which is used by about 1,000 people in remote<br>
areas of northeastern Thailand. It was developed from Thai
Sign<br>
Language about 60-80 years ago. A basic grammar and lexicon<br>
(recorded in video format) will make further assessment of the
language<br>
and its endangerment possible.<br>
<br>
Mildred Quaempts (Confederated Tribes of the
Umatilla Indian<br>
Reservation), Umatilla Immersion Camp<br>
Umatilla is one of the three languages spoken by
the confederated<br>
tribes (Cayuse and Walla Walla are the others), and they are
spoken<br>
fluently by fewer than 60 people. Quaempts is one of the fluent
second-<br>
language learners of Umatilla, and she will conduct an immersion<br>
program for sixteen tribal members of various ages. Several elders
will<br>
be available for a five-day, intensive language experience. Much of
the<br>
interaction will be recorded, and some of that will be used to help
create<br>
new language teaching materials.<br>
<br>
Paula L. Meyer (Claremont and San Diego State),
Baha California<br>
Tiipay Comparative Dictionary<br>
Baja California Tiipay is a Yuman language closely
related to U. S.<br>
versions of Tiipay (also called Diegueño) but still considered by
its<br>
speakers to be a separate language. There has so far been no
extensive</font></div>
<div><font face="Courier" size="+2" color="#000000">description or
dictionary work. Only a handful of elderly people still<br>
speak the language, as the parents have been convinced that knowing
the<br>
language is detrimental to success in modern society. The present
project<br>
will therefore focus on a dictionary, to retain the last vestiges of
a<br>
language that is bound for extinction.<br>
<br>
Marina Dmitrievna Lublinskaya (St. Petersburg U.),
Collection of<br>
Audio Material in the Nganasan Language<br>
Nganasan (along with Nenets and Enets) belongs to
the Northern<br>
Samoyedic group of Uralic languages. Although the size of the
speaking<br>
population seems never to have exceeded about 1,500, at present
only<br>
about 50% of the population (and 15% of the children) speak the<br>
language, indicating that the language is on the decline. There are
at<br>
present no audio recordings, and time is running short to record the
truly<br>
fluent speakers. Lublinskaya will record words, phrases, texts
and<br>
folklore for transfer to CDs which can be distributed to the
community.<br>
<br>
Kristine Stenzel (U. Colorado), The Wanano
Project<br>
The speakers of Wanano hope that the bilingual
education that is<br>
guaranteed by the 1988 Brazilian constitution will someday become
a<br>
reality. To help make that possible, Stenzel will help produce
written<br>
material for this Tucano language. She will also record
conversational<br>
data to help understand the complex situation of life with many<br>
languages that is so typical of Brazil. These little-studied languages
have<br>
many unusual linguistic features, such as the simultaneous interaction
of<br>
two noun categorization systems, the coding of up to five
evidential<br>
categories, and a possibly unique tonal system.<br>
<br>
Kenny Holbrook (Capitola, CA), Instruction in
Northeastern Maidu<br>
Only a few speakers of Maidu survive, and one of
the best hopes of<br>
continuing the language is for young language learners to
apprentice<br>
themselves to those speakers. The main teacher in this case will
be<br>
somewhat unusual, in that he is not a native speaker. But William<br>
Shipley, emeritus from UC Santa Cruz, learned Maidu from
Holbrook's<br>
grandmother over fifty years ago and is now poised to pass on that<br>
knowledge to a descendant. All of this will make the substantial
corpus<br>
of written material more useful and accessible for future
generations.<br>
<br>
Zarifa Nazirova (Tajik Academy of Sciences), The
Vocabulary of the<br>
Traditional Culture of the Ishkashim Language<br>
The layer of language that deals with the spiritual
life of a people is of<br>
interest to linguists, ethnologists, art historians and members of
the<br>
heritage community. The present project will collect as many
lexical<br>
entries in the cultural domain as possible. Tracing the influence of
the<br>
various languages of contact (other Pamirian languages and various<br>
Tajik languages) will be explored even as the cultural significance
is<br>
recorded as extensively as possible. The cultural heritage-and the
paths<br>
of cultural evolution-will be available permanently thanks to this
effort.<br>
<br>
Joyce Twins (Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of
Oklahoma), Cheyenne<br>
Pedagogical Materials<br>
Cheyenne is an Algonquian language spoken in
western Oklahoma<br>
and Montana. The Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes have undertaken
an<br>
ambitious language program that uses telecoursing to put the
Cheyenne<br>
language into four high schools in western Oklahoma. However, there
is<br>
a severe lack of teaching materials at all levels. The present project
will<br>
help alleviate this problem, especially in the use of sound recordings
of<br>
fluent speakers to give life to the written materials that predominate
now. <br>
Marcia Haag (U. of Oklahoma) and Laura Gibbs (Talking Leaves<br>
consortium) will lend their expertise to this project as well.
Creating this<br>
material while there are still native speakers with us is of the
utmost<br>
importance. While many tribes are recreating their languages from<br>
historical records, those still blessed with native speakers can
create a<br>
much more usable curriculum with modern technology, which lets us<br>
preserve the sounds of language in addition to writing it down.<br>
<br>
The Endangered Language Fund<br>
Dept. of Linguistics</font></div>
<div><font face="Courier" size="+2" color="#000000">Yale
University<br>
P. O. Box 208236<br>
New Haven, CT 06520-8236 USA<br>
Tel: 203-432-2450<br>
Fax: 203-432-4087<br>
http://www.ling.yale.edu/~elf</font><br>
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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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