Tag Archives: language revitalization

Digital Resources, Endangered Language Activism, Enduring Voices Project, Indigenous Language Activists, K. David Harrison, Language Hotspots, Launches and Public Events, Media and Publicity, Support Endangered Languages, Talking Dictionaries, Workshops

“Festival of Words” and Dictionary Workshop in Colombia

ImageIn October 2012, Dr. K. David Harrison traveled to Bogotá, Colombia, to participate in the 3rd annual “Festival de la Palabra” (Festival of Words) in honor of the diversity indigenous languages and cultures in Colombia.

The event was organized by the Instituto Caro y Cuervo. More information, including the event program, can be found on the event website, which describes the event as follows:

“El Festival de la Palabra Caro y Cuervo en su tercera versión está dirigido a presentar la riqueza cultural de diversas comunidades indígenas de nuestro país a través de manifestaciones culturales (música, danza, arte propio, medicina tradicional), esta es una oportunidad para compartir un espacio alrededor de la palabra.
 
El Festival de la Palabra Caro y Cuervo es el evento más destacado dentro de las actividades que la institución desarrolla en el marco de la conmemoración de sus 70 años de existencia. La programación incluye talleres, conferencias y mesas redondas sobre lenguas nativas en las que participarán representantes de las comunidades indígenas, estudiosos e investigadores de estas comunidades; así mismo habrá una muestra artística y cultural. El evento contará también con la participación del lingüista David Harrison quien es conocido por sus estudios de lenguas en peligro de extinción.”

In conjunction with the festival, Dr. Harrison was also involved in teaching a Talking Dictionary Workshop. He met many leaders in the field of indigenous language activism in Colombia. Here are some of his photos, and the rest of the slideshow can be viewed on his Living Tongues photo album on Facebook.

ImageProf. Eudocio Becarra (Uitoto language expert) with Páez (Nasa Yuwe) team members Yesenia Rincón Jimenéz and Anania Piñacue.

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Embera team recording: Angelica Maná Avila, Daniel Aguirre, Lina Tobón Yagaií

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Audience at K. David Harrison lecture on digital dictionaries

Instituto Caro y Cuervo, Bogotá, Colombia

Endangered Language Activism, Indigenous Language Activists, Media and Publicity, Support Endangered Languages

BODY OF WORDS: Announcing our Guest Blog Series on Language Loss

by Anna Luisa Daigneault

What is a language? A cultural code, an invisible ink, the sonic architecture of how we think… A language is a breath of life, and when it is endangered, it becomes a fragile treasure. Webs of meaning start to fade, carrying with them stories untold, and impoverishing humanity as a whole.

What is a linguist? A wordsmith, a lover of terms…    A deep-sea diver of minds. A sorter, a hacker, a surgeon of the soul – a kind of acrobat who goes careening into structural unknowns. A linguist of under-documented languages is an explorer who seeks to study  languages that are well-known to its native speakers, but new to science.

Whether we speak one language or five, language defines our human experience. All of our interactions and communication are mediated by language. For those of us who love languages, we cannot deny the troubling nature of the following fact: more than half of the world’s languages and dialects are going to disappear in the next century. What does that mean for the speakers of those languages? What does it mean for humanity?

This unprecedented decrease in linguistic diversity is linked to globalization, among many other factors. It is time for the public to be aware about these issues, and to share opinions in the global dialog about endangered languages.

Along with two guest writers, Allison Taylor-Adams and Indira Sarma, I am starting a summer guest blog series entitled Body of Words. We hope that you will help us spread the word about our blog series, and respond to our posts with questions and comments.

We will be discussing various issues surrounding language loss and recovery, including: the impact of boarding schools on speakers of indigenous languages, the use of new technologies and social media in language revitalization, knowledge systems encoded in languages and what their loss means for mankind, challenges in language documentation and other relevant subjects.

By discussing these issues, we hope to dispel some of the misconceptions about endangered languages, celebrate language diversity and promote efforts currently underway to protect endangered languages. Stay tuned for our first article in the series, coming out on July 4th, 2012.

Living Tongues Institute regularly encounters perspectives on language endangerment that we believe our blog readers would find thought-provoking, fascinating, debatable and challenging. This guest blog series is a forum for such opinions. The views expressed belong to the author and are not necessarily shared by Living Tongues Institute.

 

Endangered Language Activism, Indigenous Language Activists, Media and Publicity, Support Endangered Languages

Hishuk Ish Tsawalk: Everything is One

Living Tongues project coordinator Anna Luisa Daigneault recently wrote an article about Nuu-chah-nulth language revitalization efforts on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada. View the full article here. Kathy Robinson, First Nations language activistImage above: Kathy Robinson is a language warrior. At the age of 81, she is one of the last two fluent native speakers of Tseshaht (pronounced “tsi-sha-aht”), a language once popularly spoken on the west coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia. The Tseshaht people are one of 14 Nations that make up the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council.