[Athapbasckan-L] Survey on language work

[Claire Bowern]

 Hi all,
Kristine Hildebrandt and I (with other colleagues) are trying to track
recent changes (or not) to language work around the world. This survey is
for anyone who engages in, supports, is supported by, or collaborates with
communities on topics of language documentation, maintenance, and
revitalization. These surveys can be shared broadly, with any stakeholders,
anywhere in the world. We are also able to generate survey questions in
other languages as needed, and accept responses both in written or audio
formats. We are grateful to our NSF DLI Community of Science collaborators
for their support. Thank you! More details are below.

The short version (under 5 minutes to complete):
https://cryptpad.fr/form/...
<https://cryptpad.fr/form/#/2/form/view/bXfPtM2-9XI9wwi3ZuYd8tOrAmPa9GKKclMfLiZKiJk/>
The longer version (maybe up to 20 minutes to complete, but we'd get really
useful details to help build our viability schema):
https://cryptpad.fr/form/...
<https://cryptpad.fr/form/#/2/form/view/7IpVLIHucfDK1d2yo84cL29mx09o85ICq9IpZFzZ4fc/>

**Introduction**
The overall aim of these short and long surveys is to figure out how things
are changing in the language documentation world: both immediately and in
the longer term. In the last year, there have been rapid changes in many
aspects of the US federal funding and legal landscape that relate to
language work, and such funding has been a big (though by no means
exclusive) source of funding for language work.
These surveys are about the “structures” and institutions that make it
possible (or at least easier) for communities and linguists to make and
keep records about language: in short, to do language documentation. We
take a very broad view of "language documentation" and include any work
related to language description (for any reason), language reclamation and
revitalization, archival work, pedagogical development, oral histories, and
other related work. That is, any work that includes a component of work
that centers on language as its goal. We have abbreviated this as "LDMR"
for _Language Documentation, Maintenance, and Revitalization._
More generally, we are aiming to build a "resource viability" schema or
index to create a rubric by which the viability or threat-level to existing
language documentation resources (for example, digital archives and other
relevant technology, institutes, and so on) can be measured according to
their ability to withstand, survive, continue operations and so on during
current and future political and economic changes. We hope to identify the
points that have had the biggest impact, and to use this information for
where to focus opportunities to supplement, rebuild, and further grow.
We take as inspiration for this index discussions in Seifert et al. (2018)
and also McDonnell et al. eds. (2015), both papers which discuss resources
and documentation Our scope, however, is much broader. Note that this work
has some things in common (but not many) with Gavin et al’s (2025) Language
Freedom Index, which focuses on language rights and freedom of language use
in social, educational, and legal contexts.
For this project, we are crowdsourcing experiences. That is, we want to
know how individuals and communities are affected by these changes, as well
as what changes have happened. The short survey is for very brief snapshot
types of information. But you can also complete the longer survey if you'd
like, to give us more nuanced information about the spaces and places where
this kind of work is supported or threatened, based on your experiences.
Questions about the surveys can be directed to Kristine Hildebrandt (
khildeb at siue.edu) or Claire Bowern (claire.bowern at yale.edu)
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