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Professor awarded $1.2 million to document endangered languages
From Eurekalert.org
The preservation of an important record of the Atuuan dialect of the Aleut language rests on the shoulders of an 80-year-old man and his ability to recognize the language of his childhood on a dozen 100-year-old phonograph cylinders. Southern Tsimshian is nearly as close to the edge. A 94-year-old woman is the only known living speaker of the language. Eyak is another example. The last remaining speaker, Marie Smith Jones, died Jan. 21, an event that marks the extinction of her language.
"These languages are the essence of the thinking of uniquely Alaskan people, who have the right to help to retain their language," said Michael Krauss, professor emeritus of linguistics at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. "(They are) the result of millennia of experience in these environments, the wisdom of the ages, you could call it. Not only that, they represent different ways of seeing—of understanding—our common human experience."
During the next three years, Krauss will lead a team of veteran linguists in documenting these and other endangered languages in and near Alaska. The project, funded by a $1.2 million grant from the National Science Foundation, will include researchers from Canada, Japan and Russia, as well as the United States. The researchers will document some of Alaska’s most endangered indigenous and historical languages.
"If it’s ever going to be done, it has got to be done now," said Krauss, noting that some of the languages are on the brink of extinction. "Making a record, as much as we can, of a language while it is still there is vital to the future of the language and the people."
The project will rely heavily on researchers' collaboration with language speakers in communities across the state and will culminate in a variety of finished works, including several new and expanded dictionaries and grammars. The project will focus on 11 languages: Han Athabascan, Upper Kuskokwim Athabascan, Eyak, Tlingit, Southern Tsimshian, North Slope Inupiaq, Central Alaskan Yupik, Central Siberian Yupik, Alutiiq, Atuuan Aleut and Kodiak Russian Creole.
Krauss said the grant is an example of the NSF’s ongoing support of one of the most fundamental aspects of linguistics: language documentation. Over time, he said, the field has sometimes become more focused on theory and less on the diversity of human language. "The NSF never lost track of the importance of documenting these devalued languages, which were disappearing before our very eyes," Krauss said. "They always maintained a high priority for making a record of our endangered American languages."
See the article in full at: https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-02/uoaf-ka022508.php
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Last month's quiz: What do the following languages have in common?
Xhosa, Sesotho, and Damin. These are "click" languages, languages that incorporate clicking sounds. This month's winner is Jean G. Congratulations and thanks to everyone who entered. This month's quiz: Many words appear in more than one language; sometimes they have the same meaning, sometimes a quite different one. I'll give you the word in English and it's meaning in another language; you give the other language.
Gift: poison Need a hint? Here are 4 of the 5 languages, in alphabetical order: French, German, Italian, Spanish. The answers and this month's winner will be in our next newsletter. Winners receive their choice of one Talk Now or World Talk language CD-ROM! No purchase necessary to enter. Have a favorite item of language trivia? Send it to contest@multilingualbooks.com. You will receive credit for your contribution if your item is used. E-mail your entry to:
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