LDD 9 available for pre-publication order

The ninth volume of Language Documentation and Description is now in production and can be pre-ordered for 20% off the regular price. LDD 9 is a collection of papers dealing with several topics in language documentation: language documentation and sustainability ontologies in language documentation negation, deixis and loan words in endangered languages book reviews The … Read more

FEL books available for online purchase

As a result of on-going collaboration between the Foundation for Endangered Languages and the Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Project, all thirteen FEL books (proceedings of their unique annual conferences) can now be purchased securely by credit card through the SOAS online bookstore at http://www.bitly.com/LDDstore. (Scroll down past the LDD volumes for the FEL books.) To … Read more

Endangered Languages: Critical Concepts in Linguistics

My colleague Stuart McGill and I have recently completed work on a new book Endangered Languages: Criticial Concepts in Linguistics that will be published by Routledge later this year. At 1,600 pages in 4 volumes it is one of the largest projects I have been involved with. The book consists of 75 key journal articles … Read more

Day 1: Australian Languages Workshop – North Stradbroke Island

“Welcome to this land and welcome to us all”. That’s how on 11th March  Aunty Margaret Iselin opened the (tenth or eleventh) Australian Languages Workshop held this time at the University of Queensland’s Marine Biology Research Station on North Stradbroke Island. She grew up on Myora mission, and learned some language from two old grannies. … Read more

CUP Handbook of Endangered Languages

The Cambridge Handbook of Endangered Languages edited by Julia Sallabank and myself will be available in the UK next week (and in Australia in June). The book is being launched by Mari Jones at the conference on Language Endangerment: Documentation, Pedagogy, and Revitalization at Cambridge on 25th March. The Handbook covers issues in linguistic diversity … Read more

Between Adelaide and Altenburg

On the ‘5th Sunday after Epiphany 1838’ ((This is the date as given in the full title of the Darstellung der Ordinationsfeier, edited by Dr Fr Hesekiel, 1838. Altenburg: Pierer. This date correspondes to 4 February 1838)) two Lutheran missionaries from the Dresden Missionary Society, Christian (Gottlieb|Gottlob)[see comments below] Teichelmann and Clamor WIlhelm Schürmann, were … Read more

Workshop on applied language documentation

The Endangered Languages Academic Programme (ELAP) at SOAS is organising a workshop on Applied Language Documentation in sub-Saharan Africa on Saturday 14th May 2011. The workshop will discuss how the central themes of language documentation relate to improving site-specific applied language documentation, including: how corpus design might help/hinder local dissemination of language documentation outcomes; how … Read more

ELAR turns 36

At the end of last month the Endangered Languages Archive (ELAR) at SOAS made available its 36th collection of endangered languages materials. Deposits added in February include Bogong from Ghana, Pingjiang from China, Surel from Nepal and South Eastern Huastec from Mexico. The Pingjiang collection of 69 love songs is notable for having a description … Read more

LDLT3 conference

The third biennial Language Documentation and Linguistic Theory conference (LDLT3) aims to bring together researchers working on linguistic theory and language documentation and description, with a particular focus on innovative work on under-described or endangered languages. The conference will be held at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London from 18-20 November 2011. In … Read more