Language Legacies Grant Recipients - 2014
Konrad Rybka - University of Amsterdam
Lokono teacher training
Rybka has been awarded an ELF grant to develop a Lakono teacher training. Lokono's (ISO 639 code: arw) moribund status is reflected in the small number of native speakers, average speaker age of over 70, and shift to Dutch and Sranantongo in younger speakers. The community also struggles with a lack of skilled teachers. This training project will develop exercises, reading materials, videos, sound files, etc. and will educate participants during a week-long training which will focus on didactic skills, grammatical knowledge, and practical exercises.
Rafael Bezerra Nonato - Social Museu Nacional- UFRJ
Documentation of endangered genres of the Kisedje oral literature
This project continues documentation work of the Kisedje language (ISO: suy) initiated in 2008. There are roughly 350 speakers in five villages in the state of Mato Grosso in Brazil. Although many do speak the language, long-term vitality is not guaranteed, especially with the growing use of Portuguese. Nonato and others are working to document Kisedje and record its oral histories. The project has already accumulated 35 hours of oral genre recordings, including singing, ritual, discourse, historic narratives, and mythology. This ELF grant will allow researchers to continue building an audiovisual corpus and to transcribe and translate collected sessions. Further elicitation and audiovisual sessions will be held and incorporated into the existing Toolbox database. Later these products will be adapted for use at local indigenous schools.
Peri Ozlem Yuksel-Sokmen - CUNY
Lazuri Books and Picture- Word Learning Cards for Children
This project received the 2014 Isenberg award, an award given to a project in the former Soviet Union in memory of Charles Isenberg, who was a professor of Russian literature at Weslyan University and Reed College. Lazuri (Laz; ISO: lzz) is a South Caucasian language spoken along coastal regions between Turkey and Georgia. Parents no longer teach the language to their children and the younger generation prefers to speak the majority language. Teaching materials are insufficient and there is a lack of early pedagogical tools, thus, the main project goal is to develop language-teaching materials for use at home with easily accessible print and e-versions for Laz families. Two children's stories and two picture-word books have already been created. This grant will help publish the books and create online learning materials. The books will be distributed to libraries, daycare centers, and cultural centers. Digital versions with voice recordings of native speakers will be made available on the web to ensure these materials are accessible to the widest audience.
Caleb Brucks - University of Regina
Spatial Elements in Upper Tanana Athabaskan
Recent estimates place the speaker population of Alaska's Upper Tanana language (ISO: tau) at less than 90 speakers, all elderly. This project will record and document Upper Tanana language material such as traditional stories, histories, and personal narratives. Transcription and translation of earlier recordings will also be pursued. The majority of materials collected will be narratives and conversation, which will be made available to community members and made publicly accessible (with speaker consent) through the Alaska Native Languages Archive. Linguistically, this project will focus on the ways that spatial elements (directional adverbs, postpositions, place names, and spatial prefixes) are used in different genres.
Swintha Danielsen - University of Leipzig
A flora and fauna dictionary of (almost) extinct Guarasune'e (Pauserna) from Bolivian Amazonia
Guarasune'e (Pauserna ISO: psm), spoken in Bolivian Amazonia, was thought to be extinct, but was recently discovered to have four last speakers living in a remote village at the river Guapore. Danielsen will make use of the extensive corpus of previously gathered Guarasune'e vocabulary to check-in with the remaining speakers and their descendants, who will be able to clarify ambiguities in translations, help with pronunciation and point out unknown plants in the field. The project aims to publish a dictionary containing the Guarasune'e entry and a translation into local Spanish, with additional explanations including usage, Latin names, and related terms. It will be printed and distributed in Bolivia. A digital dictionary with photos will also be created.
Adam Roth Singerman - University of Chicago
Development and production of pedagogical, cultural and literacy materials in Tupari
Singerman has been awarded an ELF grant for his collaborative project to document, describe, and analyze Tupari (ISO: tpr), an understudied and endangered language spoken in the Brazilian state of Rondonia. Economic and social pressures discourage the Tupari from maintaining their language and traditions. This project will assist indigenous educators in producing literacy and pedagogical materials. These materials will help contribute to the long-term maintenance and survival of the language. Approximately 35 hours of elicitation sessions and six hours of video footage were previously collected and used to develop a working analysis of Tupari phonetics, phonology, and morphosyntax. With ELF funds, the focus will shift from elicitation sessions to textual collection and analysis.
Carol Priestley - Australian National University
Koromu traditional environmental knowledge and culture
Koromu (ISO: xes) is an endangered language in the middle Ramu Valley of Papua New Guinea. There are about 700-800 speakers and children of speakers and it is becoming increasingly unstable with social changes. Priestly conducts research on the Koromu holistic approach to relationships between the environment (particularly plants) and people, cultural traditions surrounding childbirth and recent changes. This ELF supported project will produce materials for both care of perinatal women and for language use in children's elementary education. The aim is to create 2-3 booklets for children on use and care of plants, a book on maternal health care for adults, a small book on social and environmental changes, digital materials that speakers agree to make public in their communities, and some audio-visual recordings with subtitles using Saymore software.
Sheena Shah - CALDi-Centre for African Language Diversity
An illustrated N|uu language reader for the |Khomani community
With only five known speakers, all of advanced age, N||ng (i.e. N|uu and ||'Au ISO: ngh) is one of the most endangered languages of Southern Africa. This project seeks to develop an illustrated reader to support language revitalization activities. This will require the collection of new language data and the evaluation of existing recordings of the language. Relevant semantic areas have been identified, including topics such as daily routine activities as well as animal and body part names. The reader will include illustrations of word meanings, but also interactive language games, such as crossword puzzles and spot the difference. It will be made available in pdf format on the CALDi website, so that it will be accessible to a wider audience.
Philip LeSourd - Indiana University
Documenting Pitch Accent in Maliseet-Passamaquoddy
Maliseet is spoken in five communities in New Brunswick, Canada, while Passamaquoddy is used in eastern Maine. The number of speakers of Maliseet-Passamaquoddy (ISO: pqm) continues to decline since few fluent speakers are younger than 50 years old and no children have been learning the language for many years. Although some language programs are available, current writing systems do not indicate contrasts in accent, making it difficult for teachers and students. Since these contrasts carry a heavy functional load, educational materials that reveal how pitch accent works are needed. LeSourd will use the support of ELF to fund a phonetic investigation of pitch accent in Maliseet-Passamaquoddy and to lay groundwork for a larger comparative study of this poorly documented area of the phonology of the language. Example words, phrases, and sentences chosen to illustrate known or suspected phonological and morphological determinants of pitch accent and to reveal dialectal variation in the phonetic realization of pitch contours will be collected. Results will be made available to the community in the form of online material that will explain and illustrate how pitch accent works.
Bruce Smith - Ponca Tribe
Community-based Ponca Language Learning
With less than five fluent speakers, Ponca (ISO: oma), of Nebraska and Oklahoma is "moribund." This project will focus on greater awareness of the Ponca Language through writing capability afforded by keyboard computer adaptation as well as messages and signs around the community. Researchers will gather key phrases and words to create, print, and enlarge signage to be put up in and around the White Eagle Indian reservation. These signs and placards will be placed in prominent public locations such as the White Eagle Health Center, Tribal Affairs Building, and Cultural Center. Efforts will be shared with the Northern Ponca relatives so they can benefit as well.
Kate Riestenberg - Georgetown University
A Task-Based Language Teaching Work- shop in San Pablo Macuiltianguis
The Zapotec language family is extremely diverse with reports of 56 distinct languages. This rich linguistic diversity makes revitalization efforts of San Pablo Macuiltianguis Zapotec (ISO: zaa), in Oaxaca, Mexico, crucial as the number of speakers rapidly decreases. In 2003, the Law of Linguistic Rights of Indigenous Communities was established. However, structured support for teaching these languages is lacking in part because documentation materials are scarce. Kiestenberg will organize a workshop on task-based language teaching (TBLT) with local teachers and native speaker elders to produce a multimedia repository of Zapotec teaching resources. This approach is appropriate because extensive documentation is not necessary and task-based materials also serve as language documentation materials. In addition, the focus on language function and real-world tasks allows learners to acquire utterances with grammatical knowledge and to immediately put the language to use. The three-day, hands-on workshop will introduce TBLT, develop Zapotec lessons and materials, and allow teachers to implement their new lessons.
Digna Lipaod Adonis - Ibaloy-Kankanaey Igorot
Esel ni Kaapoan, Ashalen tan Gajoan (Relearning and Protecting our Language): Preserving our Mother Tongue through Language Materials and Teaching Aids Production
This ELF grant will enable the addition of Kankanaey (ISO: kne) and Kalanguya (ISO: ify) to a documentation project, which began in 2010. Spoken in the Philippines, these languages have been affected by tourism, education, and modernization and most children are taught regional or national languages. In 2013, the Philippine Department of Education implemented Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education, a K-12 basic education program, which requires the learner's mother tongue be used in the classroom for grades one to three. The hope is for children to develop a strong literary foundation in their own culture and language, which can later be transferred across other languages and schools. The community is in need of quality materials for use in this program. Two workshops will be held to gather language knowledge and to produce books and materials. The first will compile words, phrases, sentences, songs, chants and other expressions from native speakers. The second will allow teachers of the curriculum to create teaching aids. Materials will be printed and distributed.
Lokono teacher training
Rybka has been awarded an ELF grant to develop a Lakono teacher training. Lokono's (ISO 639 code: arw) moribund status is reflected in the small number of native speakers, average speaker age of over 70, and shift to Dutch and Sranantongo in younger speakers. The community also struggles with a lack of skilled teachers. This training project will develop exercises, reading materials, videos, sound files, etc. and will educate participants during a week-long training which will focus on didactic skills, grammatical knowledge, and practical exercises.
Rafael Bezerra Nonato - Social Museu Nacional- UFRJ
Documentation of endangered genres of the Kisedje oral literature
This project continues documentation work of the Kisedje language (ISO: suy) initiated in 2008. There are roughly 350 speakers in five villages in the state of Mato Grosso in Brazil. Although many do speak the language, long-term vitality is not guaranteed, especially with the growing use of Portuguese. Nonato and others are working to document Kisedje and record its oral histories. The project has already accumulated 35 hours of oral genre recordings, including singing, ritual, discourse, historic narratives, and mythology. This ELF grant will allow researchers to continue building an audiovisual corpus and to transcribe and translate collected sessions. Further elicitation and audiovisual sessions will be held and incorporated into the existing Toolbox database. Later these products will be adapted for use at local indigenous schools.
Peri Ozlem Yuksel-Sokmen - CUNY
Lazuri Books and Picture- Word Learning Cards for Children
This project received the 2014 Isenberg award, an award given to a project in the former Soviet Union in memory of Charles Isenberg, who was a professor of Russian literature at Weslyan University and Reed College. Lazuri (Laz; ISO: lzz) is a South Caucasian language spoken along coastal regions between Turkey and Georgia. Parents no longer teach the language to their children and the younger generation prefers to speak the majority language. Teaching materials are insufficient and there is a lack of early pedagogical tools, thus, the main project goal is to develop language-teaching materials for use at home with easily accessible print and e-versions for Laz families. Two children's stories and two picture-word books have already been created. This grant will help publish the books and create online learning materials. The books will be distributed to libraries, daycare centers, and cultural centers. Digital versions with voice recordings of native speakers will be made available on the web to ensure these materials are accessible to the widest audience.
Caleb Brucks - University of Regina
Spatial Elements in Upper Tanana Athabaskan
Recent estimates place the speaker population of Alaska's Upper Tanana language (ISO: tau) at less than 90 speakers, all elderly. This project will record and document Upper Tanana language material such as traditional stories, histories, and personal narratives. Transcription and translation of earlier recordings will also be pursued. The majority of materials collected will be narratives and conversation, which will be made available to community members and made publicly accessible (with speaker consent) through the Alaska Native Languages Archive. Linguistically, this project will focus on the ways that spatial elements (directional adverbs, postpositions, place names, and spatial prefixes) are used in different genres.
Swintha Danielsen - University of Leipzig
A flora and fauna dictionary of (almost) extinct Guarasune'e (Pauserna) from Bolivian Amazonia
Guarasune'e (Pauserna ISO: psm), spoken in Bolivian Amazonia, was thought to be extinct, but was recently discovered to have four last speakers living in a remote village at the river Guapore. Danielsen will make use of the extensive corpus of previously gathered Guarasune'e vocabulary to check-in with the remaining speakers and their descendants, who will be able to clarify ambiguities in translations, help with pronunciation and point out unknown plants in the field. The project aims to publish a dictionary containing the Guarasune'e entry and a translation into local Spanish, with additional explanations including usage, Latin names, and related terms. It will be printed and distributed in Bolivia. A digital dictionary with photos will also be created.
Adam Roth Singerman - University of Chicago
Development and production of pedagogical, cultural and literacy materials in Tupari
Singerman has been awarded an ELF grant for his collaborative project to document, describe, and analyze Tupari (ISO: tpr), an understudied and endangered language spoken in the Brazilian state of Rondonia. Economic and social pressures discourage the Tupari from maintaining their language and traditions. This project will assist indigenous educators in producing literacy and pedagogical materials. These materials will help contribute to the long-term maintenance and survival of the language. Approximately 35 hours of elicitation sessions and six hours of video footage were previously collected and used to develop a working analysis of Tupari phonetics, phonology, and morphosyntax. With ELF funds, the focus will shift from elicitation sessions to textual collection and analysis.
Carol Priestley - Australian National University
Koromu traditional environmental knowledge and culture
Koromu (ISO: xes) is an endangered language in the middle Ramu Valley of Papua New Guinea. There are about 700-800 speakers and children of speakers and it is becoming increasingly unstable with social changes. Priestly conducts research on the Koromu holistic approach to relationships between the environment (particularly plants) and people, cultural traditions surrounding childbirth and recent changes. This ELF supported project will produce materials for both care of perinatal women and for language use in children's elementary education. The aim is to create 2-3 booklets for children on use and care of plants, a book on maternal health care for adults, a small book on social and environmental changes, digital materials that speakers agree to make public in their communities, and some audio-visual recordings with subtitles using Saymore software.
Sheena Shah - CALDi-Centre for African Language Diversity
An illustrated N|uu language reader for the |Khomani community
With only five known speakers, all of advanced age, N||ng (i.e. N|uu and ||'Au ISO: ngh) is one of the most endangered languages of Southern Africa. This project seeks to develop an illustrated reader to support language revitalization activities. This will require the collection of new language data and the evaluation of existing recordings of the language. Relevant semantic areas have been identified, including topics such as daily routine activities as well as animal and body part names. The reader will include illustrations of word meanings, but also interactive language games, such as crossword puzzles and spot the difference. It will be made available in pdf format on the CALDi website, so that it will be accessible to a wider audience.
Philip LeSourd - Indiana University
Documenting Pitch Accent in Maliseet-Passamaquoddy
Maliseet is spoken in five communities in New Brunswick, Canada, while Passamaquoddy is used in eastern Maine. The number of speakers of Maliseet-Passamaquoddy (ISO: pqm) continues to decline since few fluent speakers are younger than 50 years old and no children have been learning the language for many years. Although some language programs are available, current writing systems do not indicate contrasts in accent, making it difficult for teachers and students. Since these contrasts carry a heavy functional load, educational materials that reveal how pitch accent works are needed. LeSourd will use the support of ELF to fund a phonetic investigation of pitch accent in Maliseet-Passamaquoddy and to lay groundwork for a larger comparative study of this poorly documented area of the phonology of the language. Example words, phrases, and sentences chosen to illustrate known or suspected phonological and morphological determinants of pitch accent and to reveal dialectal variation in the phonetic realization of pitch contours will be collected. Results will be made available to the community in the form of online material that will explain and illustrate how pitch accent works.
Bruce Smith - Ponca Tribe
Community-based Ponca Language Learning
With less than five fluent speakers, Ponca (ISO: oma), of Nebraska and Oklahoma is "moribund." This project will focus on greater awareness of the Ponca Language through writing capability afforded by keyboard computer adaptation as well as messages and signs around the community. Researchers will gather key phrases and words to create, print, and enlarge signage to be put up in and around the White Eagle Indian reservation. These signs and placards will be placed in prominent public locations such as the White Eagle Health Center, Tribal Affairs Building, and Cultural Center. Efforts will be shared with the Northern Ponca relatives so they can benefit as well.
Kate Riestenberg - Georgetown University
A Task-Based Language Teaching Work- shop in San Pablo Macuiltianguis
The Zapotec language family is extremely diverse with reports of 56 distinct languages. This rich linguistic diversity makes revitalization efforts of San Pablo Macuiltianguis Zapotec (ISO: zaa), in Oaxaca, Mexico, crucial as the number of speakers rapidly decreases. In 2003, the Law of Linguistic Rights of Indigenous Communities was established. However, structured support for teaching these languages is lacking in part because documentation materials are scarce. Kiestenberg will organize a workshop on task-based language teaching (TBLT) with local teachers and native speaker elders to produce a multimedia repository of Zapotec teaching resources. This approach is appropriate because extensive documentation is not necessary and task-based materials also serve as language documentation materials. In addition, the focus on language function and real-world tasks allows learners to acquire utterances with grammatical knowledge and to immediately put the language to use. The three-day, hands-on workshop will introduce TBLT, develop Zapotec lessons and materials, and allow teachers to implement their new lessons.
Digna Lipaod Adonis - Ibaloy-Kankanaey Igorot
Esel ni Kaapoan, Ashalen tan Gajoan (Relearning and Protecting our Language): Preserving our Mother Tongue through Language Materials and Teaching Aids Production
This ELF grant will enable the addition of Kankanaey (ISO: kne) and Kalanguya (ISO: ify) to a documentation project, which began in 2010. Spoken in the Philippines, these languages have been affected by tourism, education, and modernization and most children are taught regional or national languages. In 2013, the Philippine Department of Education implemented Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education, a K-12 basic education program, which requires the learner's mother tongue be used in the classroom for grades one to three. The hope is for children to develop a strong literary foundation in their own culture and language, which can later be transferred across other languages and schools. The community is in need of quality materials for use in this program. Two workshops will be held to gather language knowledge and to produce books and materials. The first will compile words, phrases, sentences, songs, chants and other expressions from native speakers. The second will allow teachers of the curriculum to create teaching aids. Materials will be printed and distributed.