Endangered Languages and Cultures

Between Adelaide and Altenburg

19 March 201110 March 2011 by admin

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

2 March 2011 by admin

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

2 March 2011 by admin

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

2 March 20111 March 2011 by admin

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

Language Documentation Training

27 February 2011 by admin

The documentary linguistics training course DocLing 2011 wrapped up at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies (TUFS) on Thursday last week. This was the fourth annual training course held in Tokyo through collaboration between the Linguistic Dynamics project of the Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa (ILCAA) and the Hans Rausing Endangered … Read more

Open for business

19 February 2011 by admin

All volumes of our publication series Language Documentation and Description are now available for purchase through the new SOAS online store. Payment can be made by all major credit cards and the store uses the latest security technology, including Verified by Visa, so you can shop in complete safety. Simply register you name and address, … Read more

Another forty years on

11 February 2011 by admin

This month marks the 40th anniversary of the beginning of my professional involvement with Linguistics. And it all started out rather accidentally. In February 1971 I went from Nemingha, New South Wales, to Canberra to begin my Bachelor of Arts (Asian Studies) degree at the Australian National University (ANU). I had intended to study Japanese … Read more

ELDP grant application round open

11 February 2011 by admin

The 2011 grant application round for the Endangered Languages Documentation Programme (ELDP) at SOAS opened on 10th February. Applications close on 28th March 2011. Further information is available here. ELDP has made two changes to the application process this year: applications must be submitted through a new online application system (unless online access is difficult) … Read more

Unveiling the new and improved ELAC

11 February 201111 February 2011 by Aidan Wilson

Cross-posted from Transient Langauges and Cultures

This blog is now well into its fifth year and in all that time, not much has changed (apart from the new ‘look’ which was imposed on us from above). But a major development has now taken place: we have moved to a new home.

Regular readers will know that many contributors to this blog (such as Peter Austin, Jenny Green, David Nash among others) do so under Jane Simpson’s user account. This is because the blog’s user accounts are managed as part of the University of Sydney’s wider authentication system, meaning that only staff or students of the university could have an account.

Now, Jane Simpson has moved to the Australian National University, so we decided late last year to migrate the blog out of the confines of the Sydney University user authentication system and host it ourselves, on a server that PARADISEC won in 2008.

LSA 2011 Sessions on Metadata in Language Documentation and Description

10 February 201121 January 2011 by admin

At the recent annual meeting of the Linguistic Society of America in Pittsburgh Jeff Good of University at Buffalo and I organised a tutorial session (Friday 7th January, 1.5 hours) and poster session (Sunday 9th January, 3 hours) on the topic of metadata in language documentation and description. The tutorial talks covered general topics such … Read more