<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=us-ascii"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div><br class=""><span style="font-family: -webkit-system-font, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, sans-serif;" class=""><b class="">From: </b></span><span style="font-family: -webkit-system-font, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, sans-serif;" class="">Linda Konnerth <<a href="mailto:linda.konnerth@ur.de" class="">linda.konnerth@ur.de</a>></span><br class=""><span style="font-family: -webkit-system-font, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, sans-serif;" class=""><b class="">Subject: </b></span><span style="font-family: -webkit-system-font, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, sans-serif;" class=""><b class="">NEILS: Congratulations to Sikari Tisso and Mosyel Khaling!</b></span><br class=""><span style="font-family: -webkit-system-font, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, sans-serif;" class=""><b class="">Date: </b></span><span style="font-family: -webkit-system-font, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, sans-serif;" class="">18 January 2021 at 6:30:51 PM SGT</span><br class=""><span style="font-family: -webkit-system-font, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, sans-serif;" class=""><b class="">To: </b></span><span style="font-family: -webkit-system-font, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, sans-serif;" class="">Linda Konnerth <<a href="mailto:linda.konnerth@ur.de" class="">linda.konnerth@ur.de</a>></span><br class=""><span style="font-family: -webkit-system-font, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, sans-serif;" class=""><b class="">Cc: </b></span><span style="font-family: -webkit-system-font, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, sans-serif;" class="">Chikari Tisso <<a href="mailto:chikaritisso@gmail.com" class="">chikaritisso@gmail.com</a>>, Mosyel Syelsaangthyel Khaling <<a href="mailto:mosyel@gmail.com" class="">mosyel@gmail.com</a>></span><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""></blockquote><font color="#5856d6" class=""><br class=""><span style="caret-color: rgb(88, 86, 214);" class=""><br class=""></span></font>Dear fellow Northeast Indianists, dear fellow Tibeto-Burmanists, <br class="">I'm writing with the wonderful news that Mr. Sikari Tisso from
the Karbi community (Karbi Anglong, Assam) is the recipient of the
2021 <i class="">Excellence in Community Linguistics Award</i> of the
Linguistic Society of America. He officially received the award
last week during a Virtual Awards Ceremony. The following citation
will appear on the website of the LSA soon:<br class=""><i class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif;" lang="EN" class="">Chikari Tisso is a native speaker and language
activist of the Karbi language of Northeast India. He has been
both documenting the traditional language, and developing the
modern language, in particular through publishing books and
articles, and audio/video-recording knowledgeable community
members. Tisso has extensively served the Karbi Lammet Amei
(Karbi Literary Organization) and co-founded the Centre for
Karbi Studies. He was the primary Karbi collaborator for 'A
grammar of Karbi' (2015 Association for Linguistic Typology
Panini Award). Currently Tisso is documenting the Karbi song
language and traditional lullabies, while also focusing on
Karbi lexicology, both to edit a comprehensive dictionary of
the Karbi language and as Chief Editor of a Multilingual
Dictionary project (involving 8 indigenous community languages
of the region).</span></i><br class="">With Sikari Tisso receiving the award this year, we all can be
all the more proud that the <i class="">Excellence in Community
Linguistics Award</i> of the Linguistic Society of America has
gone to Tibeto-Burman language activists of Northeast India two
years in a row. Last year, Mosyel Syelsaangthyel Khaling from the
Uipo community (Chandel District, Manipur) highly deservedly
received the award:<br class=""><i class="">Mosyel Syelsaangthyel Khaling receives this year's Excellence
in Community Linguistics Award for his long-term work to ensure
the maintenance of his language Uipo-an endangered Southern
Tangkhulic language-and his commitment to deep community
engagement, what his nominator refers to as his "non-standard,
highly valuable documentation methods." Facing the disappearance
of Uipo oral traditions, he invented original methods for their
documentation resorting to the collective memory of tribal
elders. The duration- Mr. Khaling started work on his language
in 1976 at age 17- and extent of his contributions are
outstanding and he did this work without any external support
for a number of years. Mr. Khaling's longstanding and
continued efforts to document and increase literacy in Uipo are
both admirable and commendable.</i><br class="">Congratulations to both Sikari Tisso and Mosyel Syelsaangthyel
Khaling for your enormous achievements! I think I can speak on
behalf of the North East Indian Linguistics and Tibeto-Burman
Linguistics communities more generally to thank you for your
dedication, activism, and service to your language and community,
which represent crucial contributions to linguistics! We are
incredibly lucky to have you in our midst. <br class="">
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<div class=""><p class="">Linda<br class="">
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