Federal agencies provide new opportunities for dying languages (fwd link)

[Phil Cash Cash]

*Federal agencies provide new opportunities for dying languages*

*NSF and NEH award more than $4 million to preserve nearly 40 languages*

*August 15, 2014*

http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=132370&org=NSF&from=news

The National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Endowment for the
Humanities (NEH) recently announced 27 awards totaling more than $4 million
in the 10th round of a joint effort to document languages threatened with
extinction.

These new awards, part of an NSF-NEH Documenting Endangered Languages (DEL)
program, support digital documentation work on nearly 40 endangered
languages. They build research infrastructure, encourage long term
collaboration with host countries and involve significant community
engagement.

"Language is a source of invaluable cognitive, historical and environmental
information," said NSF Director France Córdova. "Most of what is known
about human communication and cognition is based on less than 10 percent of
the world's 7,000 languages. We must do our best to document living
endangered languages and their associated cultural and scientific
information before they disappear."

New estimates from a three-year, NSF-supported study conclude that at least
every three months somewhere in the world a language loses all its
remaining speakers. The finding, based on newly compiled data, is an update
from previous estimates that found at least one language goes extinct every
two weeks.

Since the first round of awards DEL in 2005, the program has funded nearly
300 projects and more than 200 researchers who have captured high-quality
data from languages in danger of extinction.

In this new round of awards, for example, DEL is funding the *Advances in
Linguistic, Ethnobotanical, and Botanical Sciences through Documentation of
Traditional Ecological Knowledge *project. Anthropologist Jonathan Amith of
Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania and botanist John Kress of the
Smithsonian Institution will examine the ways endangered languages encode
information on how communities have historically interacted with their
environments.

The study will provide clues about environmental changes over generations
of speakers; it also will improve understanding about increases or
decreases in biodiversity and sustainable practices adapted to particular
environments.

Another project, *Community Directed Audio-Visual Documentation of Ayöök*,
will create digital documentation of this Mixe-Zoquean language spoken in
Mexico. Linguistic anthropologist Daniel Suslak of Indiana University and
clinical psychologist Ben Levine, director of Speaking Place, will use an
innovative technique called "facilitated-feedback filming" to stimulate
groups of community members to recall long forgotten events, share ideas
and engage in frank discussions.

The project will create a corpus of Ayöök language data. The interactive
process will reawaken Ayöök traditional ecological knowledge that will be
used by biochemists to expand maize genetics research at the Plant Sciences
Department at the University of California, Davis.

"The NSF-NEH partnership to document endangered languages is making great
strides," said NEH Chairman William Adams. "Together, the two agencies are
supporting research and creating valuable language resources that serve
linguists and indigenous communities around the globe to revitalize their
languages. And through its priority on Native American languages, NEH
ensures the unique cultural and linguistic heritage of our own country is
sustained."

All of this year's DEL projects will produce sophisticated digital products
that can be publicly accessed through major language repositories such as
the Archive of Indigenous Languages of Latin America, California Language
Archive, the Endangered Language Archive at the School for African and
Oriental Studies and the Pacific and Regional Archive for Digital Sources
in Endangered Cultures.

DEL projects continue to gain support across the National Science
Foundation. Programs in Robust Intelligence, Linguistics, Cultural
Anthropology, Polar Programs, International Science and Engineering,
Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research, Interdisciplinary
Behavioral and Social Science Research, Science of Broadening Participation
and the Tribal Colleges and Universities Program support the 2014 awards.

At the National Endowment for the Humanities, DEL projects are funded
through the Division of Preservation and Access and the Division of
Research, where there continues to be a priority on documentation of
languages of the Americas.

A complete listing of this year's awards follows.

*Institutional Grants* (awarded by NSF or NEH, as indicated):

   - *Jonathan D. Amith*, Gettysburg College and Co-PI *John Kress*,
   Smithsonian Institution. *Documenting Traditional Ecological Knowledge
   in the Sierra Nororiental de Puebla*, Mexico, in Synchronic and
   Diachronic Perspectives, $449,942 (NSF) and $200,000 (NEH).
   - *Andrea Berez*, University of Hawaii, Manoa, *Making Pacific Language
   Materials Discoverable: Identifying and Describing Indigenous
Languages, *$122,317
   (NEH)
   - *April Counceller and Co-PI Alisha S Drabek, *Alutiiq Heritage
   Foundation. *The Alutiq Language Archive and Speaker Registry*, $399,058
   (NSF).
   - *J. Andrew Cowell, *University of Colorado at Boulder. *Arapahoe (ARP)
   Lexical Database and Dictionary*, $177,213 (NEH).
   - *Scott DeLancey*, University of Oregon Eugene. *Documenting the
   languages of Manipur: Clues to the prehistory of Sino-Tibetan languages*,
   $312,722 (NSF).
   - *Christian T. DiCanio*, Haskins Laboratories, Inc. *Understanding
   Prosody and Tone Interactions through Documentation of Two Endangered
   Languages* $340,456 (NSF).
   - *Jeffrey C. Good* and Co-PI *Jan Chomicki, *SUNY at Buffalo. *Language
   Documentation, Fieldwork Training Models, and Computational Tools for
   Understanding Linguistic Stability and Change*, $406,186 (NSF).
   - *Lenore Grenoble*, University of Chicago. *Understanding spatial
   determiners, complex predicates, and case marking through traditional
   narratives in endangered languages*, $239,955 (NSF).
   - *Jacob Manatowa-Bailey, *Sac and Fox Nation of Oklahoma. *Digitization,
   Transcription, and Publication of Sauk Narratives*, $90,996 (NSF).
   - *Micheal Oltrogge *and Co-PI* Alice Saunsoci, *Nebraska Indian
   Community College. *Discovering Omaha Linguistic Structure through the
   Documentation of Fluent Omaha Elders' Voices*, $85,568 (NSF).
   - *David Peterson*, Dartmouth College. *Documentation of Rengmitca
   (Tibeto-Burman)**, *$175,635 (NSF).
   - *Clifton L Pye*, University of Kansas Center for Research Inc.,
*Procedures
   for the Rapid Documentation of Language Acquisition in an Endangered
   Language Context*, $260,426 (NSF).
   - *Carmel O'Shannessy*, University of Michigan Ann Arbor. *Documentation
   and acquisition of Light Warlpiri and Warlpiri*, $255,891 (NSF).
   - *Daniel F. Suslak, *Indiana University and Co-PI* Benjamin Levine* of
   Speaking Place. *Community Directed Audio-Visual Documentation of Ayook
   (ISO 939-3 MTO) and Development of an Online Ayöök Language Portal,*
   $258,316 (NEH).

*Fellowships *(awarded by NEH, $50,400 each):

   - *Emiliana Cruz*, University of Massachusetts Amherst, *Language
   Description: Chatino [ISO 693-3 CTP] place names and local knowledge:
   Description with a multimedia documentary corpus*.
   - *Keri Eggleston*, *The Next Critical Step in Documenting Tlingit
   (TLI).*
   - *Jeffrey E. Davis*, University of Tennessee Knoxville, *Plains Indian
   Sign Language (PSD) Digital Corpus Linguistics Project.*
   - *John M. Keegan*, *Sara-Bagirmi Languages Database Project.*
   - *Hiroko Sato*, University of Hawaii, *Preliminary field investigation
   of the Bebeli language (bek), Papua New Guinea.*

*Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grants *(awarded by NSF)

   - *Clare S. Sandy* under the direction of Andrew J Garrett, University
   of California-Berkeley, The Phonology and Morphology of Karuk, $15,120.
   - *Lajos S Szoboszlai *under the direction of Martha J. Macri,
   University of California-Davis, *Mutsun reclamation continued: Three
   years in a learner's efforts to acquire language*, $6,830.
   - *Adam J Tallman* under the direction of Patience Epps, University of
   Texas at Austin, *Investigating complex word reanalysis through
   endangered language data, *$14,493.

*Conferences and Workshops *(awarded by NSF)

   - *Darryl Baldwin*, Myaamia Center, Miami Tribe of Oklahoma, *Archival
   Institute for Indigenous Languages*, $167,650.
   - *Andrea Berez*, University of Hawaii, *WORKSHOP: Enriching Theory,
   Practice, and Application: Classes and Special Sessions at the 4th
   International Conference on Language Documentation & Conservation*,
   $43,600
   - *Damir Cavar*, Eastern Michigan University, *19th Lexical-Functional
   Grammar Conference*, $12,199
   - *Jeffrey Good*, SUNY at Buffalo, *ComputEL: A workshop to explore the
   use of computational methods in the study of endangered languages*,
   $25,007.
   - *Jason Kandybowicz *and Co-PI* Harold Torrence, *University of Kansas
   Center for Research Inc., Africa's Endangered Languages: Documentary and
   Theoretical Approaches, $24,601.

-NSF-



*Media Contacts *Bobbie Mixon, NSF, (703) 292-8070, bmixon at nsf.gov
Paula Wasley, National Endowment for the Humanities, (202) 606-8424,
pwasley at neh.gov


*Related Websites *NEH Fellowships: http://go.usa.gov/DZMC
NEH Preservation Awards: http://go.usa.gov/DZFz
Documenting Endangered Languages website:
http://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=12816&org=SBE


*The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent federal agency
that supports fundamental research and education across all fields of
science and engineering. In fiscal year (FY) 2014, its budget is $7.2
billion. NSF funds reach all 50 states through grants to nearly 2,000
colleges, universities and other institutions. Each year, NSF receives
about 50,000 competitive requests for funding, and makes about 11,500 new
funding awards. NSF also awards about $593 million in professional and
service contracts yearly.*
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ilat/attachments/20140816/216a5314/attachment.htm>