LSA Committee on Endangered Languages

Current estimates are that more than half of the world’s estimated 6,000 languages will become extinct during our lifetime. Indigenous communities and linguists are responding to this global crisis of language endangerment in a number of ways. Research on and renewal of endangered languages stands at a critical juncture. One response is in building skills and networks with experts in language work. A key training initiative coming up this June and July is CoLang 2014: the Institute on Collaborative Language Research.

CoLang is an internationally-recognized language documentation and revitalization institute, hosted this year by The University of Texas at Arlington, and previously by the University of California, Santa Barbara, the University of Oregon, and the University of Kansas. This summer, CoLang 2014 offers a major opportunity to work to stem the tide of language shift and endangerment, and to increase documentation on the world’s underdocumented languages. Our special focus for CoLang is on Native American languages of the United States due in large part to UT Arlington’s unique collaborations and programs supporting indigenous language documentation and revitalization, especially in the Southwest language communities, under the auspices of the Native American Languages Lab. But CoLang 2014 remains a place that welcomes language stakeholders worldwide to come for training. We offer a series of workshops that train a wide variety of audiences in a large and diverse set of skills in community-centered language documentation and revitalization. Our instructors come from the international community of indigenous and academic experts to provide state-of-the-art, intensive training. CoLang brings in experts not only from the United States, Canada and Mexico, but also from Africa, Australia, and Asia, thereby offering a tremendous range of expertise in the kinds of challenges facing endangered language communities, and the responses communities and linguists adopt in different contexts. Participants include undergraduate and graduate students, practicing linguists, and members of indigenous communities. Participants with no or little linguistic background are welcome, and there are workshops that introduce linguistics.

CoLang participants can acquire or refine cutting edge skills in language documentation, revitalization and field linguistics, network with established international experts in these areas, and gain hands-on experience in working with endangered and underdescribed languages through field methods courses. There are two parts to CoLang. The first is the two week workshop sessions, which last June 16 – 27, 2014. Workshops vary in the skills they teach: new technologies for audio and video and other digital approaches, software like ELAN or FLEx, teaching approaches for indigenous languages, indigenous language revitalization, orthography development, song documentation and more. Some participants stay on an additional for weeks and choose to enroll in the optional field methods courses, which constitute a practicum for integrating the newly learned skills with firsthand work with speakers of an endangered language. These courses go from June 30 – July 25, 2014, and we plan to offer three sections. A Muskogean language will be the focus with Dr. Mary Linn; Innu (Cree), an Alonquian language will be the focus with Dr. Monica Macaulay; and Dr. Christian DiCanio will lead the first-ever Spanish-medium field methods course at CoLang, working with speakers of a Mixtec variety (the Oto-Manguean family). Depending on interest, we may be able to offer a fourth section on a language from a region other than the Americas (instructor to be determined).

An exciting development this year is our partnership with the Linguistic Society of America, and support of CoLang by the LSA’s Committee on Endangered Languages and their Preservation. Part of this co-sponsorship includes LSA scholarships to CoLang 2014, creating expanded opportunities for academic training in language documentation and field linguistics for faculty and students, including undergraduates. In addition to LSA scholarships, the Endangered Language Fund will offer a scholarship through its Native Voices Endowment. Finally, we will also be able to offer scholarships from UT Arlington, thanks to generous supporters and donors.

Online scholarship applications from the Linguistic Society of America and for CoLang 2014 internal scholarships are or will shortly be available. Full scholarship information, including our internal CoLang scholarship link (which is currently open and has a deadline of March 17), is online.

We are able to put on CoLang thanks to support from the National Science Foundation (BCS#1263939), the Linguistic Society of America, the Endangered Language Fund, and The University of Texas at Arlington. Join us this summer in Arlington for CoLang 2014: a significant step forward in the documentation of indigenous linguistic heritage, a valuable training ground for emerging linguists to acquire documentation and field linguistics skills, and a place where established linguists can expand their repertoire or retool for their next projects.

And don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter for the latest Colang 2014 updates! Hope to see you in June in Arlington, Texas –

Colleen M. Fitzgerald

Professor of Linguistics and Director of CoLang 2014
The University of Texas at Arlington