Endangered Languages and Cultures

International Mother Language Day 21 February 2012

19 February 2012 by Jane Simpson

Large or small, Indo-European or Inuit, endangered or killer, let’s celebrate our mother tongues on UNESCO‘s International Mother Language Day! We don’t all die for language rights, like the Bangla-speaking students of the University of Dhaka who were killed on 21 February 1952, protesting the then Government of Pakistan’s decision to promote Urdu as the … Read more

Hopes and dreams

11 February 2012 by Jane Simpson

On Thursday I had an interesting time in a sleek-looking conference room at Parliament House with the House of Representatives Inquiry into language learning in Indigenous communities. The terms of inquiry cover learning English and learning Indigenous languages. Lots of people have put lots of time and thought into their submissions and appearances (available online). They are a fascinating snapshot of current concerns, hopes and dreams. (A couple contain not-so-subtle touting – gimme a gazillion and I’ll solve literacy/attendance/savethelanguage, but they’re the exception).

So I was answering questions about my submission [.pdf] on language learning in Indigenous communities. Here goes with points that I wanted to make, and then what I remember of questions asked by the Committee:

Scam alert or how to make a lot of money really quickly

9 February 2012 by admin

Felicity Meakins writes… Just recently I was on Amazon, when I came across two potentially interesting books: Frederic P. Miller, Agnes F. Vandome and John McBrewster (eds) (2009), Mixed Language, Alphascript Frederic P. Miller, Agnes F. Vandome and John McBrewster (eds) (2010), Michif Language: Language, Métis people (Canada), First Nations, Fur trade, French Canadian, Mixed language, … Read more

Yan-nhaŋu in the National Year of Reading

26 January 2012 by Jane Simpson

What a good decision in today’s Australia Day honours to make Laurie Baymarrwangga Senior Australian of the Year 2012! Read Claire Bowern’s post for an appreciation of her and her work documenting the Yan-nhaŋu language and getting it written down. She sounds a delightful person. 2012 is also National Year of Reading. Everyone with a … Read more

Making old dictionaries new again

18 October 201323 January 2012 by Lauren Gawne

Today’s post is something of a recipe for making old dictionaries new again. I’ll explain how a 35 year old old, single-copy typewritten dictionary is living a new life as a digital database. The language of this dictionary is Kagate – A Tibeto-Burman language of the Central Bodic branch, spoken in Nepal. I met some … Read more

Buttering parsnips in the Year of the Dragon

21 January 2012 by Jane Simpson

Three things to think about/do.. 1. Creeping towards constitutional recognition Section 127A Recognition of languages The national language of the Commonwealth of Australia is English. The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages are the original Australian languages, a part of our national heritage This is what was proposed in a report on recognising Aboriginal and … Read more

Where are they now?

28 January 201216 January 2012 by admin

Over at the Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Project we have started a new series of web posts called ELAP in Focus where we present stories about our former MA and PhD students, and the interesting lives they are leading since studying at SOAS. The first story about a former MA student is by Takashi Nakagawa … Read more

The Bhasha Vasudha: Global Languages Meet. A report by RNLD’s Margaret Florey

15 January 201215 January 2012 by Nick Thieberger

The Bhasha Vasudha: Global Languages Meet was held over several venues in Gujarat, India from 7-8 January 2012. The Meet was the creation of language activist Dr Ganesh Devy of the Bhasha Research and Publication Centre, who in 2011 was awarded the International Linguapax Award in recognition of “a lifetime dedicated to the promotion, dignification and preservation of a multitude of languages in India”.

The Meet commenced at the Sir Sayajirao Auditorium in Vadodara with the release of the People’s Linguistic Survey of India (PLSI).

PARADISEC’s 2011

11 January 201211 January 2012 by Nick Thieberger

This year at PARADISEC our collections grew as follows:

January 2011 / December 2011
159/172 collections
6,972 /7,422 items
46,900 /58,680 files
5.02 /5.46 TB
2880:25/3185:43 hours

We are always in negotiation with prospective depositors about collections, for example, we are working with Theodore Schwartz to accession his wonderful 1950s Manus (PNG) recordings (made with Margaret Mead) and have accessioned John Harris’s PNG recordings from the 1960s. Not all negotiations are successful however. For example, we offered to work with the Basel Kultur Museum to digitise Fr. John Z’graggen’s 500 tapes from the Madang region of PNG, but so far that offer has not been taken up.

We continue to be an exemplary five-star Open Language Archives Community (OLAC) collection, which means our metadata is among the few OLAC archives with the highest quality rating. The content of the metadata relies on depositors, so we have focused on making it as easy as possible for a minimal metadata set to be entered and then enhanced over time. Our metadata is also harvested at the collection-level by the Australian National Data Service.

LDD 10 now out

22 December 2011 by admin

Volume 10 of Language Documentation and Description is now available for purchase from the SOAS online store. Until 31 January 2012 copies may be ordered for £10 (including postage and packaging), which is 25% off the regular retail price. Volume 10 is edited by Jan-Olof Svantesson, Niclas Burenhult, Arthur Holmer, Anastasia Karlsson and Håkan Lundström, … Read more