|
 The
Enduring Voices Project
is a
joint venture between Living Tongues
Institute for Endangered Languages and
National Geographic Society’s Missions
Programs. Its goals are numerous but
include the following non-exhaustive
list:
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i) to help promote widespread social
awareness of the global language
extinction crisis,
ii) to comprehensively document
poorly known endangered languages,
iii)
to get up-to-date information on
numbers of speakers, contemporary use
and levels of endangerment an community-driven language movements on a
the world’s endangered languages, where
and when appropriate
iv)
to provide support in the form of
language technology kits and community
training and capacity building,
v)
to help support these indigenous
movements in language revitalization and
maintenance and
vi)
to provide a forum for
endangered language media products to be
enjoyed by the broadest spectrum of the
public and endangered communities alike.
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The areas visited by the Enduring Voices
team concentrates on the
Global
Language Hotspots List as a
guideline or roadmap. As of February
2011, the Enduring Voices team has made
visits to a number of different
locations, each expedition having its
own specific goals.
The first visit was to
Northern
Australia in 2007, where we learned
about best practice in indigenous
language revitalization, visiting
various communities in the Northern
Territory and Western Australia. We met
with speakers of a range of languages.
An exploratory visit to learn about
the current state of the secret
Kallawaya language and the
endangered
Chipaya language of
Bolivia was also undertaken in 2007.
In 2008, Enduring Voices twice
visited the northeastern Indian state of
Arunachal Pradesh, where the team
has been working on learning about the
state of the
Hruso (Aka) language, and
began a long-term documentation of the
little known
Koro Aka language.
In 2008 and 2009, the Enduring Voices
crew visited
Northern California,
home of the
Winnemem Wintu, and
Oklahoma to learn about the work being
done by the Sac and Fox Nation on
their
Sauk
language.
2009 also saw visits to the
Paraguay,
where Enduring Voices has begun to
support work on the
Yshyr Chamacoco
language, and to
Papua New Guinea,
where Enduring Voices has started work
helping to support the revitalization of
the
Matukar Panau language, and
started a documentation of the
Panim
language, both of Madang Province. Data
was also collected on the number of
speakers, use and vitality of a range of
other languages of PNG including the
Yokoim (Karawari),
Karim (Yimas)
and
Wamut (Nanubae) language of
East Sepik Province, the
Huli,
Duna,
Ipili,
Etoro and
Foe languages of South Highlands
Province and the
Panim and
Wagi Ne languages
of
Madang
Province.
2010 saw another visit to the
Koro Aka in Arunachal Pradesh and a
Language Revitalization Workshop
held in Santa Fe New Mexico.
The most recent Enduring Voices trip was
in January 2011 to assess the vitality
of the
Huillichesungun and
Tsesungun languages of south central
Chile and the
Mapudungun
language of
central
Chile.
In
August-September 2011, Living Tongues
Fellow and Project Coordinator Anna
Luisa Daigneault went on a follow-up
trip to South America to connect with
language activists in Chile as well as
Peru. She worked on an ethnographic
archiving project with the Yanesha
people of the Peruvian Amazon, worked
with various speakers of Mapudungun
dialects in Chile, and continued an
ongoing dictionary project collaborating
with Andres Ozuna, Yshyr-Chamacoco
language activist of northern Paraguay.
Download her field report here. |
Enduring Voices
Project
