Endangered Languages and Cultures

Happy Anniversary

5 February 20114 January 2011 by admin

Today marks the 20th anniversary of a symposium on “Endangered Languages and their Preservation” that was held on the 3rd January 1991 at the 65th annual meeting of the Linguistic Society of America in Chicago. The symposium was organised by the late Ken Hale and featured presentations by him, Michael Krauss, Lucille J. Watahomigie, Akira … Read more

Endangered genres

5 February 20116 December 2010 by admin

[ update 6/12/2010: some missing links now added ] It is by now well known that around half (or possibly more) of the world’s 7,000 languages are endangered and under threat of disappearance during the current century. Perhaps less well known is that many languages that are not (yet) endangered show certain genres, or ways … Read more

Free and open

5 February 20113 December 2010 by admin

In commenting on a recent blog post of mine about SOAS publication plans, Nick Thieberger raises a number of relevant and important issues for anyone publishing in our field. Getting comments like this is manna to me as a blog author since so many of my posts go uncommented upon (I know people are reading them because I can track redirects from Facebook and my home page via bitly.com, and just occasionally someone references the content of a blog post, as in the recently published Handbook of Descriptive Linguistic Fieldwork by Shobhana L. Chelliah and William J. De Reuse). It is also good to be challenged to clarify one’s own thinking about issues, so thanks for the feedback, Nick.
I identified the following main four points in Nick’s comments:

1. LDD should “move to an Open Access model for [its] content in the future”
2. content should be free and online because that makes it available to people who cannot pay and who would otherwise not be able to access it
3. having content online means you can measure downloads and the number of downloads measures impact
4. the current LDD business model should be replaced

I will respond to each of these points in turn.

Good on you LTU!

5 February 201128 November 2010 by admin

I have a soft spot for La Trobe University (LTU) in Australia. LTU is where I got my first tenured job 30 years ago (just over two years after finishing my PhD — ah, those were the days) and still the place I have worked the longest in a somewhat peripatetic academic career (summarised here. … Read more

SOAS publication plans

5 February 201126 November 2010 by admin

This month the eighth volume of Language Documentation and Description (LDD8) hit the streets (you can order it at a 25% discount, and also get 25% off any of our other volumes ordered before 31 December 2010). It’s a special issue on documentation of endangered oral literatures and is guest edited by Imogen Gunn and … Read more

The public wavelength

5 February 201123 November 2010 by admin

At this year’s American Anthropological Association (AAA)

Consortium on Training in Language Documentation and Conservation (CTLDC)

5 February 201119 November 2010 by Nick Thieberger

I recently attended a symposium titled Models for capacity development in language documentation and conservation hosted by ILCAA at the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. The symposium brought together a group of people involved in supporting language work in the Asia-Pacific region in various ways (see the website for a full list): academic (Institute of Linguistics, Minhsiung, Taiwan, Beijing, China, Goroka, PNG, Batchelor, Australia, Bangkok, Thailand) and community-based (Manokwari, West-Papua; Tshanglalo, Bhutan; Bhasha Research Centre and Adivasi Academy, Gudjarat, India; Miromaa, Australia), using film (Sorosoro, France), or archiving language records (PARADISEC). The aim of the meeting was to build a network that would continue to link between training activities to support language work, the Consortium on Training in Language Documentation and Conservation (CTLDC), whose planning group members are listed here.

New book ‘Re-awakening languages’

5 February 201118 November 2010 by Jane Simpson

[ Forwarded by John Hobson] Re-awakening languages: theory and practice in the revitalisation of Australia’s Indigenous languages Edited by John Hobson, Kevin Lowe, Susan Poetsch and Michael Walsh Sydney University Press ISBN: 9781920899554 The Indigenous languages of Australia have been undergoing a renaissance over recent decades. Many languages that had long ceased to be heard … Read more

Honours theses

5 February 20118 November 2010 by Jane Simpson

Around Australia, honours degrees are under threat from academic administrators who see them as resource-intensive and fee-sparse. Often terrific work is done in honours theses. But this work often doesn’t get publicised, and we need that kind of publicity to show just why honours degrees are worth doing, and worth fighting for. So it’s great … Read more

No more Ngarla

5 February 20114 November 2010 by admin

Friday this week (5th November 2010) marks a sad day for Aboriginal languages of the Pilbara region of Western Australia with the funeral of Alexander (“Sandy”) Brown, the last fluent speaker of Ngarla. Sandy was born in 1930 near the De Grey River in the traditional country of the Ngarla which stretched eastwards for about … Read more