LINGUIST List 14.2957

Thu Oct 30 2003

FYI: Funding Session at LSA; Yahgan Grammar Source

Editor for this issue: Anne Clarke <annelinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Peter Sells, Session at LSA Annual Meeting on Linguistics Research Funding
2. Jess Tauber, Source on Grammar of Endangered Language Yahgan Discovered

A group of linguists and program officers at NSF have been discussing
ways to increase funding for research in linguistics, through
opportunities created by new funding channels within NSF. As part of
the LSA annual meeting in Boston, we will be holding an information
and discussion session on this developing initiative, in the afternoon
of the very first day, Thursday January 8th, 2004 (2:30-4:30pm). We
hope to have as many participants as possible. See:
http://www.lsadc.org/2004annmeet/highlights.html

The initiative will have a website to provide access and input for the
general community of linguists, at http://www.teraling.org . The
website is currently under construction, but has the abstract of the
LSA session, providing more details of this event.

Yahgan, a genetic isolate from Tierra del Fuego, currently has one
fluent speaker remaining. As part of my ongoing research into the
language, I have attempted to collect any materials pertaining to
it. Most of the work on the language was done in the latter half of
the 19th century by the missionary Thomas Bridges, but much of his
legacy was lost or destroyed by events in Europe during two world
wars, including many manuscript materials which have never been
published.

I have recently discovered, at the U.S. Library of Congress, a
manuscript grammar of the language, provenience unknown, which has
been held in their collections since at least 1961. This item, more
than 150pp in length, is not listed in any bibliography on the Yahgan,
and, and as far as I can tell, has never been consulted by recent scholars
of the language. It contains a wealth of information on the phonetics
(including stress), derivational and inflectional morphology
(including nearly exhaustive paradigm lists).

Anyone interested in obtaining a copy may write me at
phonosemanticsearthlink.net

Jess Tauber