LINGUIST List 13.2977

Sat Nov 16 2002

FYI: Endangered Language Fund Grants Announced

Editor for this issue: James Yuells <jameslinguistlist.org>

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  • Doug Whalen, FYI: Endangered Language Fund Grants for 2002

    Message 1: FYI: Endangered Language Fund Grants for 2002

     Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2002 12:18:07 -0500
    From: Doug Whalen <whalenalvin.haskins.yale.edu>
    Subject: FYI: Endangered Language Fund Grants for 2002


    Status: RO

    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 Francoproven�al, 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, Francoproven�al 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 Pican�o (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

    Language codes: COF, JQR, TAH, ZRO, SHS, FRA, IQU, KYR, ESS, UTE, WUT, CRK.

    - Doug Whalen (whalenhaskins.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/