The first bilingual education program for children speaking Indigenous Australian languages ran in Adelaide around 1840. A hundred plus years later, the first university position in Australian languages was offered at the University of Adelaide, held by the Arrernte-speaking linguist T G H Strehlow – albeit combined with English literature at the start… [The other competitor for firstness would be Arthur Capell at the University of Sydney but that was in Anthropology and Oceanic Linguistics].
And now.. Australia’s first chair in the “Linguistics of Endangered Languages” is being offered at the University of Adelaide.
Job description here. Closing date: 25 June 2010
Follow2 thoughts on “Chair of Endangered Languages – University of Adelaide”
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With regard to the campaign to save endangered and dying languages, can I point to the contribution, made by the World Esperanto Association, to UNESCO’s campaign.
The commitment was made, by the World Esperanto Association at the United Nations’ Geneva HQ in September.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=eR7vD9kChBA&feature=related
Your readers may be interested in http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=_YHALnLV9XU Professor Piron was a translator with the United Nations in Geneva.
A glimpse of Esperanto can be seen at http://www.lernu.net
Interesting to note your mention of Arthur Capell, perhaps a sole authority on the Anuki language, an endangered language which currently has about 500 speakers. The Anuki area is in the Milne Bay Province of Papua New Guinea.