Category Archives: Media and Publicity

International Mother Language Day, Language Hotspots, Launches and Public Events, Media and Publicity, Support Endangered Languages, Workshops

“International Mother Language Day” Events at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

flyer designed by Marty O’Connor

Show Your Love for Languages!
In conjunction with UNESCO’s International Mother Language Day (coming up on February 21, 2012) and Valentine’s Day, the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages and the UNC Undergrad Linguistics Club (Underling) team up to bring you these two fascinating events exploring the frontiers of endangered language documentation. Show some love for minority languages by attending these events!

1) Film Screening: The Linguists (Ironbound Films, 2008, 65 minutes)
Date: Monday, February 13th, 2012, 7pm-9pm    Facebook event

Greg Anderson and David Harrison are scientists racing to document languages on the verge of extinction. Filmed in Siberia, India, and Bolivia, this documentary confronts the very forces silencing languages: institutionalized racism and violent economic unrest. The linguists’ journey takes them deep into the heart of threatened cultures and knowledge.

The Linguists world premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival went on to win many awards. Noam Chomsky calls it “a breathtaking thrill ride through the landscape of language” and the film has inspired many people around the world to get involved in language documentation. Greg Anderson is the founder of the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages, and one of the institute’s project coordinators, Anna Luisa Daigneault, will be present at the screening to introduce the film and to do a Q & A about endangered language documentation after the film.     http://thelinguists.com/

2) Workshop: Introduction to Endangered Languages and Fieldwork Methods Date: Tuesday, February 14th, 2012, 4pm-6pm   Facebook Event

Minority languages are being increasingly replaced by various politically, economically, or socio-culturally dominant ones. Every two weeks the last fluent speaker of a language passes on and with him/her goes literally hundreds of generations of traditional knowledge encoded in these ancestral tongues. Nearly half of the world’s languages are likely to vanish in the next 100 years.

The Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages, founded by linguist Greg Anderson, is a non-profit organization dedicated to documenting the world’s most threatened languages. Anderson and fellow institute director of research David Harrison also collaborate with the National Geographic Society in “The Enduring Voices Project”, a global initiative that focuses on the preservation and revitalization of endangered languages through linguist-aided, community-driven multi-media documentation projects.

Anna Luisa Daigneault, Latin American Projects Coordinator and Organizational Fellow at the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages, will be holding a two-hour workshop on the importance of doing endangered language research in our current generation. She will provide students with an introduction to fieldwork methodology and speak about the use of digital technology in language documentation. Anna Luisa has worked in the Amazon for several years, documenting the Yanesha language and creating an oral history online database. She has also taken part in several Enduring Voices fieldwork trips to Paraguay, Chile and Peru.

For more information on the screening and the workshop, contact UNC event coordinator Natalie Feingold at ncfein@unc.edu

Endangered Language Activism, K. David Harrison, Language Hotspots, Launches and Public Events, Media and Publicity, Support Endangered Languages

“Endangered Languages: Global and Local Perspectives” event at California State University, Northridge

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Los Angeles, California

Dr. K. David Harrison and Dr. Gregory Anderson presented at CSUN university on January 31st, 2012, in the Oviatt Presentation Room.

Many thanks to the CSUN Linguistics / TESL program for organizing this great event. Greg and David were pleased to meet the staff and students at CSUN, and engage in meaningful discussions with them.

An article was published about the event here: http://sundial.csun.edu/2012/02/linguists-discuss-the-steady-extinction-of-world-languages/

Launches and Public Events, Media and Publicity, Support Endangered Languages

Urge President Obama to sign the executive order on Native American language revitalization

This just in from our friends at the LSA (Linguistic Society of America) and the RNLD (Resource Network for Linguistic Diversity http://www.rnld.org/):

The LSA Committee on Endangered Languages and their Preservation (CELP) is requesting the help of the American linguistics and language activism community on RNLD. You may recall that last April the LSA passed a resolution urging President Obama to sign an executive order on Native American language revitalization (http://www.lsadc.org/info/lsa-res-native-american.cfm). CELP is now following this up by instituting a letter-writing campaign to President Obama, in order to convey to the White House our support for this important issue.

We are encouraging all of you to write letters and become agents of positive change. Writing a letter is easy – it takes just a few clicks on the CELP website: www.lsacelp.org.

There are three ways to help!

1. Simple, effective, and really fast:

-Go to http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact

-Fill out the form. In the drop-down list for 
the Subject box, select “Education.”

-In the message box, copy and paste the 
letter found at the bottom of our webpage http://lsacelp.org/take-action/ and type your name at the end.

-Solve the captcha by typing the word or phrase given in the box. Press send, and you’re done!

2. More effective and almost as fast:

-Copy and paste the letter found at http://lsacelp.org/take-action/ into a word processor such as Microsoft Word.

-Type today’s date at the top of the letter.

-Print it out and sign it.

-Mail it to: 
President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500

3. Most effective:

-Write your own letter in your own words. Let President Obama and the White House know why this issue is important to you!

-Use the link above to send your letter electronically, or print and sign your letter and mail it to the White House.

Thank you very much for your attention. We value your participation and all the work that you do in the furtherance of Indigenous language revitalization.