Endangered Language Fund Grants for 2002

[Doug Whalen]

Twelve ELF Grants Awarded in 2002
The Endangered Language Fund is pleased to announce its grants for
2002.  There were some coincidences in the number this year.  We had
50 applications, 25 from U. S. institutions and 25 from others.  We
were able to fund 12 in total, and half were from U. S. institutions.
As you will see, much of the work (even for the U. S.-based
proposals) happens to be outside the U. S. this year.  The rich and
relatively undescribed Amazonian area received some deserved
attention.  Five proposals deal with South American languages, while
four are based in North America.  The others bring in Europe, Asia
(Siberia) and the Pacific (Papua New Guinea).  Once again, it was a
difficult task to select such a small number from such an impressive
pool of proposals.  It is only thanks to the generosity of our
members that we are able to offer these grants at all.  So, thanks to
all of you who have donated; please visit our website for more
information on joining the ELF
(http://www.ling.yale.edu/~elf/join.html).

Valerio Luciani Ascencio (Kawki) - Preservation of the Kawki
language.  Luciani is the youngest fluent speaker of Kawki, a Jaqui
language of Peru.  Luciani spoke Kawki until he went to school, where
he was forced to switch to Spanish.  "This seemed very strange to me
and I felt very sad because I did not use my own language.  Thus,
little by little, I was forgetting it, and I liked Spanish," Luciani
writes.  Today, he is teaching about 40 children in Cachuy.  His ELF
grant will purchase supplies and printing for the materials that he
uses in these classes.  The material will help, but the largest
contribution will continue to come form Luciani's own efforts.

Susan Doty (Creek Tribe)  - Muskogee Creek language traditional song
preservation.  The songs used in Creek Indian churches are part of a
strong tradition, but these days, the songbooks are getting smaller
and smaller.  The more complicated, meaningful songs are being lost
to simpler, repetitive tunes that are easier to learn. Doty will use
her ELF grant to visit as many churches in Oklahoma as possible,
recording songs in a clear, strong voice so that the words are easier
to learn.

Thomas McIlwraith, Regina Louie, Angela Dennis and Sally Havard
(Iskut First Nations) - Talking to the animals: Tahltan-language
animal stories and forms of address.  Tahltan is a critically
endangered Athapaskan language spoken by fewer than one hundred
adults in British Columbia.  The texts that will be collected in this
project will serve linguistic, ethnolinguistic and pedagogical goals,
supporting the existing efforts in the schools and bring more
awareness to the community at large.

Maximilian Viatori (U. California, Davis) - A practical Zapara
phonology and morphology.  Zapara is spoken in the rainforest
province of Pastaza in eastern Ecuador.  There are currently three
fluent speakers of Zapara and several others who remember songs and
words, but cannot converse in the language. Viatori will help
determine possible genetic relationships and provide materials for
the reintroduction of Zapara into the curriculum of schools in five
communities.

Rosalind Williams (Splatsin Tribe) --  Creation of Secwepenc Wordlist
2002.  The Splatsin are one of the seventeen tribes that make up the
Secwepemc (Shuswap) Nation in British Columbia.  There are sixteen
remaining speakers fluent in the eastern dialect of this Salishan
language, and there are four nearly fluent learners of the language
(including Williams) who have been mentored by the elders.  Their
current word lists were found to have been documented for a single
meaning or situation.  Williams will help fill in the gaps and will
record the fluent speakers saying the words as well.

Naomi Nagy (U. New Hampshire) - Preserving Faetar in the school.
Faetar, a variant of the Francoprovençal, is a language spoken in two
small, mountaintop villages in southern Italy: Faeto and Celle St.
Vito.  Because of a small migration from eastern France to southern
Italy about 600 years ago, Francoprovençal survives as Faetar.  Nagy
will help develop an orthography to allow Faetar to gain a foothold
in the schools and help keep it alive within the community.

Chris Beier and Lev Michael (U. Texas, Austin) - Iquito language
documentation project.  The last remaining Iquito community is San
Antonio in the Amazon Basin of Peru.  Recently, the community has
developed a serious interest in starting a language revitalization
project.  In cooperation with Cabeceras, a US-based group dedicated
to providing resources to indigenous Amazonian communities in
defending their health, well-being, and autonomy, Beier and Michael
have devised a revitalization program.  They will simultaneously
document the language and train the speakers themselves as linguists,
allowing work to continue at a scale not possible for outsiders.

Gessiane Lobato Picanço (U. British Columbia) - Documentation of
Kuruaya, a moribund language of Brazil.  Kuruaya, a language of the
Munduruku family of Tupi stock, has only five elderly speakers
remaining, and they no longer use Kuruaya in their daily lives.
Since the description of the language is so sketchy, basic work with
word lists, texts and paradigms will be undertaken first.  Copies of
all material will be made available to the Kuruaya people , local
institutions and other collaborators.

Nikolai Vakhtin (European U. at St. Petersburg) - Siberian Yupik
Eskimo conversation book.  When Yupik Eskimo was introduced into the
Siberian school curriculum in the 1930s, all the children spoke it as
their mother tongue and had only to learn how to write and read it.
After 60 years of demographic, social and economic pressure, formal
education, and residential schooling, the situation has changed
drastically.  Now, school-age children speaker almost only Russian
and learn their ethnic language at school as a foreign language from
teachers who themselves often do not know the language very well.
The language situation is somewhat better on the U.S. side of the
Bering Strait, where most children on St. Lawrence Island now speak
the language.  With the lifting of the Iron Curtain, it is now
possible for Yupiks to visit their relatives on either side.
Ironically, the only common language now is Yupik, even though the
Russians speak it haltingly or only listen to it.  This unexpected
promotion of Yupic to the status of an international language
contributes considerably to its prestige and has spurred the Siberian
Yupiks to learn it better.  Vakhtin proposes to take material from
his 30 years of work on the language to make booklets for those who
are traveling to the U.S. and are now in need of a "Berlitz" for
Yupik.

Pamela Bunte and Nikole Lobb (California State U., Long Beach) -
Using San Juan Southern Paiute narratives in a language
revitalization program.  The San Juan Paiute tribe, the easternmonst
of ten Southern Paiute tribes, is located in Arizona and Utah on the
Navajo reservation, with about 30 of the 300 tribal members being
fluent speakers; only one child (a four-year-old) is learning it.
The tribe set up a language revitalization program that will include
short immersion camps.  Southern Paiute traditional narratives are
culturally important as they express Paiute world view and
traditional lifeways.  Bunte plans to record on videotape both the
telling of some of these stories and some dramatizations using
puppets, both for use in the immersion camps.

Connie Dickinson (U. Oregon) - Tsafiki dictionary project.  Tsafiki
(Colorado) is spoken by about 2000 Tsachila living on seven communes
situated at the western base of the Andes near the city of Santo
Domingo de los Colorados in Ecuador.  While the language is not in
imminent danger and children are still learning it, the Tsachila are
under tremendous pressure from the dominant Spanish culture, and
their way of life is undergoing rapid change.  Work on a dictionary
has begun with the help of PIKITSA, an indigenous institution
dedicated to the documentation and preservation of the Tsachila
(Colorados) language and culture.  The communities are looking
forward to having a dictionary to use in their fight to maintain
their language.

Doug Marmion (Australian National U.) - Wutung language maintenance
and literacy development.  Wutung is a small coastal village in the
far north-west of Papua New Guinea, lying immediately adjacent to the
border with Indonesia.  Sandaun Province is an area of great
linguistic diversity, being home to approximately 110 languages in
eight genetically distinct families, along with three isolates.  Of
these languages, none has yet been described in detail, although
there are partial descriptions of perhaps half a dozen.  Marmion will
collect as many texts as feasible, including those that deal with
traditional culture, which is also threatened.  Texts will be
selected to be made into books to be printed in Australia and sent
back for use in the school and by the general community.

The Endangered Language Fund
Dept. of Linguistics, Yale University
P. O. Box 208366
New Haven, CT  06520-8366

--
Doug Whalen (whalen at haskins.yale.edu)
Haskins Laboratories
270 Crown St.
New Haven, CT 06511
203-865-6163, ext. 234
FAX:  203-865-8963
http://www.haskins.yale.edu/
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