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Language
Hotspots Project
Language Hotspots was conceived and developed by Dr. Greg
Anderson and Dr. David Harrison at the Living Tongues
Institute for Endangered Languages. It is a radically new
way to look at the distribution of global linguistic
diversity, to assess the threat of extinction, and to
prioritize research. We define hotspots as concentrated
regions of the world having the highest level of linguistic
diversity (see below), the highest levels of endangerment,
and the least-studied languages. Rather than simply counting
languages, Hotspots take into account the number of language
families (which we call "genetic units") represented in an
area to calculate linguistic diversity. Click here for more
on
Language Hotspots and our
Enduring Voices Expeditions and the
Enduring Voices Expedition Team.
Language Hotspots are areas that are urgently in need of
action and should be the areas of highest priority in
planning future research projects and channeling funding
streams. Language Hotspots represent areas where we find a
concentration of
three logically independent factors, a high
average level of endangerment, a high degree of linguistic
diversity (calculated on the level of language family not
individual language) and a low average level of prior
documentation.
Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages has
identified roughly twenty such Language Hotspots. The
Language Hotspots list became a major research agenda for
2005-2006 for Living Tongues Institute for Endangered
Languages. A
white
paper outlining the
research program was written in 2006 and revised in 2007 by
Dr. Greg Anderson and Dr. David Harrison. It was presented
formally to National Geographic in September 2006 and is now
the core part of the Society’s Mission Programs’ Enduring
Voices Project.
In February 2007 the science behind the
Eastern Siberia Language
Hotspot was given a
public presentation at the annual meeting of the American
Association for the Advancement of Science. The Enduring
Voices Project and the Global Language Hotspots List and map
developed by Living Tongues Institute for Endangered
Languages was announced formally in September 2007.
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