National Science Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities Award New Grants to Document Endangered Languages (fwd)

[phil cash cash]

Press Release 07-142

National Science Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities Award New
Grants to Document Endangered Languages

Focus on Arctic languages reflects International Polar Year research agenda

Eighteen institutional grants and nine fellowships were awarded to document
endangered languages.

October 12, 2007
http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=109583&org=NSF&from=news

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the National Science
Foundation (NSF) today announced the award of 18 institutional grants and
nine fellowships in their Documenting Endangered Languages (DEL)
partnership. A workshop on language recording techniques also will be
supported. This is the third round of their multiyear campaign to preserve
records of languages threatened with extinction. Experts estimate that more
than half of the approximately 7,000 currently used human languages will
stop being spoken in this century. These new DEL awards, totaling more than
$4 million, will support direct documentation work on more than 30 such
languages and improvements in computer use that will help all language
work.

Further recognition came to awardee Sven Haakanson last month in the form of
a MacArthur Fellowship. Combining language work, funded by NSF, with revival
of cultural traditions, "Haakanson is preserving and reviving ancient
traditions and heritage, celebrating the rich past of Alutiiq communities,
and providing the larger world with a valuable window into a little-known
culture," according to the MacArthur Web site. The interaction of
communities and their environment via language is a common theme in DEL
grants. It is particularly relevant in the Arctic region during the current
International Polar Year (IPY).

Work by indigenous groups continues to play a prominent role in
documentation. Native groups have an automatic interest in preserving their
languages, often after decades of neglect and active suppression. Projects
funded at the Salish Kootenai College in Montana, the Choctaw Nation in
Oklahoma, the Navajo Language Academy in Arizona, the Koasati Tribe in
Louisiana (together with McNeese State University), the Alutiiq Museum in
Alaska (discussed above) and the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin demonstrate an
active and successful surge in preservation of Native American languages by
the speakers and their descendants.

As part of the U. S. IPY research agenda, NSF is supporting the
documentation and preservation of endangered Arctic languages. Most Arctic
indigenous languages are highly endangered. One project headed by Sharon
Hargus of the University of Washington will focus on obtaining personal
narratives of climate change in three Native communities in Alaska and
Canada. Not only will the narratives provide important linguistic material,
they will provide a Native perspective on changes to an environment that,
while harsh, is extremely sensitive to change. Other Arctic languages to be
recorded are Alutiiq, Klallam, Deg Xinag and Tlingit. A grant supplement
will extend the work in Siberia under the direction of Alexander
Nakhimovsky of Colgate University.

Several DEL grants extend work in the realm of computer support, allowing a
more efficient processing of language data and greater access for a wide
range of users. Andrew Garrett, at the University of California, Berkeley,
will begin the enormous task of making the extensive holdings in the
Berkeley Indigenous Language Archive available electronically. Jason
Baldridge, at the University of Texas, Austin, will work on an automatic
annotation technique that, if successful, will save countless hours on the
part of transcribers of endangered language material. And Susan Penfield,
at the University of Arizona, will explore the ways in which a community as
a whole can work collaboratively on language projects. An innovative
workshop strategy, led by Carol Genetti at the University of Washington,
will train a cadre of linguists and Native community members in the
techniques of digital archiving. The workshop will allow for an increased
use of hands-on experience with the opportunity for the attendees to take
away a suite of open-source products to continue their language work at
their home institutions.

Work in the Pacific will involve Cemaun Arapesh, Rotokas, and Bahinemo
(Papua New Guinea), Kimaragang (Malaysia), and Bardi (Australia). Africa
will be represented by Bikya, Bishuo, and Busuu (Cameroon), Krim and Bom
(Sierra Leone), and Nyangbo (Ghana). Further afield are studies of Albanian
and Razihi (Yemen). Central America is represented by work on Mayan: Chorti,
Yocotán and Tumbalá Chol in one project and Tojolabal in another.

A complete listing of this year's awards follows. Note that ISO-639 language
codes, the new international standard for referring to any of the world's
languages, are typically included in the title in parentheses after the
language name.

-NSF-

The 2007 Documenting Endangered Language awards. Note that ISO-639 language
codes, the new international standard for referring to any of the world's
languages, are typically included in the title in parentheses after the
language name.

Institutional Grants

    * Jason Baldridge (University of Texas at Austin) Reducing Annotation
Effort in the Documentation of Languages using Machine Learning and Active
Learning, $79,106 (NSF)
    * Claire Bowern (Rice University) The Language of Bardi (bcj) Precontact
Narratives, $75,893 (NSF)
    * Joshua Brown (Salish Kootenai College) Speaking To the Future: Salish
(fla) Language Preservation, $100,000 (NSF)
    * G. Tucker Childs (Portland State University) Documenting Krim (krm)
and Bom (bmf), two endangered languages of Sierra Leone, $99,991 (NSF)
    * Carol Cornelius (Oneida Tribe of Wisconsin) Documenting and Archiving
the Oneida (one) Language of Wisconsin, $100,000 (NSF)
    * Richard Dauenhauer (University of Alaska Southeast, Juneau)
Documenting and archiving Deg Xinag (ing), Tlingit (tli), and other
Northern languages, $352,231 (NSF)
    * James Essegbey University of Florida Documentation of Nyangbo (nyb),
$79,908 (NSF)
    * Theordore Fernald (Navajo Language Academy) Navajo (nav) Language
Academy Workshop and Research, $77,092 (NSF)
    * Louanna Furbee (University of Missouri Columbia) Tojolabal (toj)
(Maya) Language Documentation Project, $240,844 (NSF)
    * Andrew Garrett (University of California, Berkeley) Berkeley
Indigenous Language Resources: Access, Archiving, and Documentation,
$340,000 (NEH)
    * Carol Genetti (University of Washinton) Workshop on field linguistics
and language documentation. $103,690 (NSF)
    * Jeffrey Good (University of Buffalo) Documentation of moribund
languages of Furu Awa, Cameroon (Bikya (byb), Bishuo (bwh), Busuu (bju)),
$14,498 (NEH).
    * Sven Haakanson (Alutiiq Museum) Alutiiq (ems)Living Words Project,
$445,929 (NSF)
    * Sharon Hargus (University of Washington) Athabaskan Personal Histories
of Climate Change in Alaska and Canada, $250,000 (NSF)
    * Linda Langley (McNeese State University) Kowasa:ton il:halas -- Let Us
Hear Koasati (cku): A Filmic Documentation Project of Koasati, $448,646
(NSF)
    * Martha Macri (University of California-Davis) J. P. Harrington
Database Project: Transcription, Coding, and Indices, $240,000 (NSF)
    * Timothy Montler (University of North Texas) Klallam (clm) Dictionary
and Electronic Text Archive, $317,502 (NEH)
    * Terry Ragan (Choctaw Nation) Choctaw (cho) Language Preservation
Project, $80,000 (NSF)

Fellowships

    * Lise Dobrin A Reference Grammar of Cemaun Arapesh (aon, ape, aoj)
    * Thurlow W. Dye Documenting the Bahinemo language and culture for
future study
    * John Fought Archiving a Linguistic Corpus of Chorti (caa), Yocotán
(chf) and Tumbalá Chol (ctu) Mayan: Audio Recordings, Field Notes and
Photographs, and Related Materials
    * Jeffrey Good (University of Buffalo) Documentation of moribund
languages of Furu Awa, Cameroon (Bikya (byb), Bishuo (bwh), Busuu (bju))
    * Paul Kroeger (GIAL) Kimaragang (kqr) grammar outline and digital
recordings
    * Kelly L. Maynard Describing an Endangered Dialect of Albanian (aln)
Spoken in Samsun, Turkey
    * Susan Penfield (University of Arizona) Community-Based Language
Documentation: Mohave (mov) and Beyond
    * Elevina Perkins Navajo (nav) Language Investigations
    * Stuart Robinson Documenting the Dialects of Rotokas (roo)
    * Bonnie Stalls Razihi Grammar, Lexicon, Texts, and Recordings

Media Contacts
Peter West, NSF (703) 292-7761 pwest at nsf.gov
Bobbie Mixon, NSF (703) 292-8485 bmixon at nsf.gov

Program Contacts
Douglas Whalen, NSF (703) 292-7321 dwhalen at nsf.gov

Related Websites
U.S. Government Web Portal for the International Polar Year:
http://www.ipy.gov