ELL: Re: Requesting your assistance

[Julia Sallabank]

Requesting your assistanceDear Professor Yamamoto

I am studying the endangered indigenous languages of the Channel Islands, semi-autonomous dependencies of the British Crown in the English Channel. The indigenous languages are dialects of Norman French and are important from the point of view of historical linguistics, given the influence of Norman French on English.

There are revitalisation movements in Jersey and Guernsey, the two largest islands. Would these be of interest to Discovery Channel? The islands are well-known as tourist resorts and for their cows, milk, tomatoes, and potatoes, but very few tourists realise that they have their own languages too. 

With best wishes

Julia Sallabank

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Akira Y. Yamamoto 
  To: endangered-languages-l at cleo.murdoch.edu.au 
  Sent: Wednesday, April 17, 2002 5:39 AM
  Subject: ELL: Requesting your assistance


  Dear ELLers:
          Discovery Channel, the world's leading non-fiction entertainment channel dedicated to helping people explore the world, will form a promotional partnership with the United Nations Educationa, Scientific and Cultural Organizaiton (UNESCO) aimed at generating awareness for endangered languages and cultural heritage.  To this end, Discovery Channel plans to produce the ginettes/films of up to 2 minutes in length each related to language preservation and the value of languages both as a means of communication and expression of cultural identity.  UNESCO/Discovery Channel need to have 2~4 examples of endangered language communities in each of the countries listed below.  We are asked to provide such examples of endangered languages to be filmed and they want examples:
  (1) that will be illustrative in order to appeal to the general public,
  (2) that have accessible contact persons,
  (3) that will not create any political problem with the concerned government,
  (4) that may include spoken, written, or sign language,
  (5) and that the language community is trying to maintain, vitalize or revitalize their languages.


  The geographical areas they are looking for are:


  Great Britain/UK/Ireland
  Western EuropeNordic
  Eastern Europe/Baltics
  Middle East/Turkey/Africa
  Taiwan
  Malaysia
  Korea
  China
  Argentina
  Mexico
  Venezuela


  Could anyone help identify such endangered languages/language communities?   Many thanks, Akira




  Akira Y. Yamamoto
  The University of Kansas
  Department of Anthropology
  Fraser Hall 622
  1415 Jayhawk Blvd.
  Lawrence, KS 66045-7556
  Phone: (785) 864-2645
  FAX: (785) 864-5224
  Anthropology: http://www.ukans.edu/~kuanth/
  Linguistics: http://www.linguistics.ukans.edu/


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/endangered-languages-l/attachments/20020425/080a24e0/attachment.htm>