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Press Release 05-072
Federal Agencies Partner to Document Endangered Languages
NSF, NEH launch effort to digitally archive dying languages
May 5, 2005
Today, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) announced the recipients of 13 fellowships and 26 institutional grants as part of the agencies' joint Documenting Endangered Languages (DEL) project—a new, multi-year effort to digitally archive at-risk languages before they become extinct. Experts estimate that almost half of the world's 6000-7000 existing languages are endangered. The DEL awards, totaling $4.4 million, will support the digital documentation of more than 70 of them.
"Endangered languages are an irreplaceable source of linguistic and cognitive information," according to NSF Director Arden L. Bement, Jr. "Modern cyberinfrastructure tools enable us to investigate these phenomena more exactly and more comprehensively."
The DEL grants support a variety of researchers and reflect efforts to document dying languages around the globe. For example, the Museum of the Cherokee Indian in Cherokee, N.C. was awarded a grant to translate and digitize 19th-century Cherokee language materials from the Smithsonian Institution. Scientists at Cornell and Northern Arizona Universities will gather ultrasound and airflow data to determine just how the "click" sounds of South Africa's N/u language are produced. Only 13 fluent N/u speakers remain. Kristine Stenzel from the University of Colorado will document and analyze Piratapuyo--an Amazon language that uses an extremely rare word order: Object-Verb-Subject.
Researchers at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks will digitize 1,000 Yup'ik audio recordings for storage at the Arctic Region Supercomputing Center and assess the feasibility of creating a Northern Indigenous Languages Archive for the region's 200 endangered languages. Three DEL fellowship awardees will independently document several endangered Austronesian languages--including ones spoken in Taiwan, the Philippines and on Easter Island. On Easter Island, use of Rapa Nui declined from 77 percent to 7.5 percent among elementary school children over a 20-year period.
"This is a rescue mission to save endangered languages," says NEH Chairman Bruce Cole of the DEL program. "Language is the DNA of a culture, and it is the vehicle for the traditions, customs, stories, history, and beliefs of a people. A lost language is a lost culture. Fortunately, with the aid of modern technology and these federal funds, linguistic scholars can document and record these languages before they become extinct."
A complete listing of this year's awards follows.
Institutional grants:
Jonathan Amith, Gettysburg College, Guerrero Nahuatl Language Documentation and Lexicon Enrichment Project $299,917 (NSF)
Melissa Axelrod, University of New Mexico, Nambe Tewa Language Revitalization Project: Production of an Electronic Archive, $203,840 (NSF)
Lyle Campbell, University of Utah, Xinkan, Pipil and Mocho': Bringing Three Endangered Language Documentation Projects to Completion, $374,932 (NSF)
Peter Cole, University of Delaware, Traditional Jambi Malay, $185,585 (NSF)
Lise Dobrin, University of Virginia, Arapesh Grammar and Digital Language Archive, $225,000 (NEH)
Barbara Duncan, Cherokee Museum, Smithsonian Cherokee Language Materials and Language revitalization, $166,274 (NEH)
Keri Edwards, Sealaska Heritage, Continuing Tlingit Language Documentation, $266,224 (NSF)
Zygmunt Frajzyngier, University of Colorado, Grammars of Mandara and Giziga, $239,999 (NSF)
Jule Garcia, California State University, San Marcos, Multimedia Database of Ixil Mayan Narratives, $160,000 (NSF)
John Goldsmith, University of Chicago, Digital Preservation of Meso-American Linguistic Archives, $141,516 (NEH)
Heidi Harley, University of Arizona, The Morphosyntax of Verbs in Arizona Yaqui, $159,992 (NSF)
Charles Hofling, Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Comparative and Historical Yukatekan Maya, $101,971 (NSF)
Gary Holton, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Developing a Northern Indigenous Languages Archive: Yup'ik Pilot Project, $39,186 (NSF)
Thomas Hudak, Arizona State University, Documentation and Archival-Digitization of Tai Linguistic Data, $69,456 (NSF)
Larry Hyman, University of California Berkeley, Documentation and Description of the Badiaranke Language, $17,767 (NEH)
Richard Littlebear, Dull Knife Memorial College, Northern Cheyenne Endangered Language Project, $100,000 (NSF)
Daniel Miller, Ironbound Films, Inc., Vanishing Voices, $502,730 (NSF)
Amanda Miller-Ockhuizen, Cornell University, Collaborative Research: Descriptive and Theoretical Studies of N|u, $14,452 (NSF)
Susan Penfield, University of Arizona, Mohave and Chemehuevi Language Documentation Project, $200,000 (NSF)
Margaret Reynolds, Linguistic Society of America, Archiving Endangered Languages: Communication Among Competing Approaches and Education in Best Practices, $25,000 (NSF)
Bonny Sands, Northern Arizona University, Collaborative Research: Descriptive and Theoretical Studies of N|u $6,970
Joel Sherzer, University of Texas at Austin, DELAMAN 3: The Third Annual Meeting of the Digital Endangered Languages and Musics Archive Network, $15,950
Kathy Sikorski, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Pedagogical Grammar of Gwich'in, $103,947 (NSF)
Siri Tuttle, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Lower Tanana Dictionary and Literacy, $109,772 (NSF)
Gregory Ward, Linguistic Society of America, Challenge Grant: Ensuring the Teaching of Research Skills for the Documentation and Revitalization of Endangered Languages (Kenneth Hale Memorial Chair), $40,000 (NEH, NSF)
Natasha Warner, University of Arizona, Database of Mutsun, an Extinct California American-Indian Language, $168,261 (NEH)
Fellowships:
Luis Barragan, Documenting Mountain Pima Traditional Narratives
Phillip Cash Cash, A Filmic Language Documentation of Nez Perce and Sahaptin
Erin Debenport, Documenting Southern Tiwa at Sandia Pueblo, New Mexico
Arienne Dwyer, University of Kansas, Language Contact and Variation: A Discourse-based Grammar of Monguor
Andrei Filtchenko, Rice University, Documentation of the Endangered Eastern Khanty Dialects
Nicholas Hopkins, Digitizing and Archiving of Mesoamerican Language Data,
Miki Makihara, CUNY Queens College, Easter Island Linguistic Heritage Project: Creating a Digital Archive for Rapa Nui Oral and Video Histories
Anthony Mattina, Colville-Okanagan Dictionary, Reference Grammar, Texts
Justin McBride, Kaw Nation, Kaw Language Documentation Project
Robert L. Rankin, University of Kansas, Kaw Language Documentation Project
Laura Robinson, Linguistic Documentation of Eastern Cagayan Agta
Paula Rogers, The Documentation of Saaroa
Kristine Stenzel, Documentation of Piratapuyo (Eastern Tukanoan)
-NSF-
Media Contacts
Nicole Mahoney, NSF (703) 292-5321 nmahoney@nsf.gov
Noel Milan, National Endowment for the Humanities (202) 606-8439 nmilan@neh.gov
Program Contacts
James Herbert, NSF (703) 292-8600 jherbert@nsf.gov
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent federal agency that
supports fundamental research and education across all fields of science and
engineering, with an annual budget of $6.06 billion. NSF funds reach all 50
states through grants to over 1,900 universities and institutions. Each year,
NSF receives about 45,000 competitive requests for funding, and makes over
11,500 new funding awards. NSF also awards over $400 million in
professional and service contracts yearly.
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