NSF/NEH grants

[Margaret Florey]

Dear RNLD friends,

The following grants may be available to some of you and look like a
great source of funding! Please circulate widely to colleagues.

best wishes,
Margaret

* Documenting Endangered Languages (NSF/NEH/Smithsonian partnership)
    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

The National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the
Humanities recently announced "Documenting Endangered Languages," a
multi-year funding partnership supporting projects to develop and advance
knowledge concerning endangered human languages.  Made urgent by the
imminent death of an estimated half of the 6,000-7,000 currently used
human languages, this effort aims also to exploit advances in information
technology.  Funding will support fieldwork and other activities relevant
to recording, documenting, and archiving endangered languages, including
the preparation of lexicons, grammars, text samples, and databases.
Funding will be available in the form of one- to three-year project
grants as well as fellowships for up to twelve months.  At least half
the available funding will be awarded to projects involving fieldwork.
The Smithsonian Institution's National Anthropological Archives will
participate in the partnership as a research host, a non-funding role.

Principal Investigators and applicants for Fellowships may propose
projects involving one or more of the following activities:

     1. Conduct fieldwork to record in digital audio and video format one
or more endangered languages.

     2. Carry out later stages of documentation including the preparation
of lexicons, grammars, text samples, and databases.

     3. Digitize and otherwise preserve and provide wider access to such
documentary materials, including previously collected materials and
those concerned with languages which have recently died and are related
to currently endangered languages.

     4. Further develop standards and databases to make this documentation
widely available in consistent, archivable, interoperable, and
Web-based formats.

     5. Conduct initial analysis of findings in the light of current
linguistic theory.

     6. Train native speakers in descriptive linguistics.

     7. Create other infrastructure, including workshops, to make the
problem of endangered languages  more widely understood and more
effectively addressed.

Proposed projects may range from a single investigator working for six
months to a group of investigators working for three years.  DEL will
give the highest priority to projects that involve actually recording in
digital audio and video format endangered languages before they become
extinct.

Academic institutions and non-profit, non-academic organizations located
in the United States are eligible for project funding.   U.S. citizens
are eligible to apply for fellowships, as are foreign nationals who
have been living in the United States or its jurisdictions for at least
the three years prior to the proposal deadline.

The anticipated funding amount is $2,000,000 annually, pending the
availability of funds.  It will be distributed among 18 to 22 awards,
approximately 12 of which will be fellowships of either $40,000 (9-12
months) or $24,000 (6-8 months).

The first proposal deadline will be November 1, 2004.  For full program
information and proposal guidelines visit:

        http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2004/nsf04605/nsf04605.htm

General questions and questions about project grants should be directed
to Joan Maling, Linguistics Program Director, NSF (tel: 703/292-8046,
fax: 703/292-9068, e-mail: jmaling at nsf.gov).

Questions about fellowships should be directed to Helen Aguera, Acting
Deputy Director, Preservation & Access Program, NEH (tel: 202/606-8573,
e-mail: haguera at neh.gov).

--
Dr Margaret Florey
Senior Lecturer
Linguistics Program
School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics
Monash University
Victoria 3800
Australia
Tel: +61 (0)3 9905-2237
Fax: +61 (0)3 9905-5437
Email: Margaret.Florey at arts.monash.edu.au
Home page: http://www.arts.monash.edu.au/ling/mf2.html

Endangered Maluku Languages Project
Email: Maluku at arts.monash.edu.au
Fax: +61 (0)3 9905-8492
Web Site http://www.arts.monash.edu.au/ling/maluku/