By Jonas Lau This week on the ELAR Blog, ELAR depositor Jonas Lau tells us about his experience working with somebody else’s ELAR deposit for his MA dissertation. After finishing his MA in Language Documentation and Description at SOAS, Jonas went on to study a PhD in Linguistics at the Universität zu Köln, receiving an ELDP grant for his field work. His ELAR deposit can be accessed here. If you
This week on the ELAR Blog we want to celebrate World Poetry Day by sharing recordings of some of the beautiful poems from our collections with you. The selected poems were published in ‘Poems from the Edge of Extinction: An Anthology of Poetry in Endangered Languages‘ last year. The volume was edited by National Poetry Librarian Chris McCabe, and introduced by Mandana Seyfeddinipur and Martin Orwin. UNESCO’s World Poetry Day on 21
We are pleased to announce that New Contexts for the Use of Minoritized Languages/Varieties NEWCON 2020 will take place at the University of Zadar 28-30 September 2020. New Contexts for the Use of Minoritized Languages/Varieties (NEWCON) is an international linguistics conference organized by the Linguistics Department of the University of Zadar, the SOAS World Languages Institute at the University of London, Mercator European Research Centre on Multilingualism and Language Learning and
Today on the ELAR blog, we are featuring ELDP grantee Roberto Zavala Maldonado’s project ‘Documentation of five Zoquean languages spoken in Mexico‘. The project documents the languages San Miguel Chimalapa, Jitotoltec, Highland Popoluca, Chiapas Zoque, and Santa María Chimalapa. This is the last year of our project and we are finishing up as much as we can. We recruited a new PhD student who is doing field work in Santa Maria
SOAS World Languages Institute, ELAR and ELDP host a virtual celebration of International Mother Language Day! International Mother Language Day was proclaimed by the General Conference of UNESCO in November 1999 “to promote the preservation and protection of all languages used by peoples of the world”. The idea to celebrate International Mother Language Day was the initiative of Bangladesh, where 21 February is a national holiday commemorating the Bengali Language Movement.
By Adékúnmi Ọlátúnjí As part of our Virtual Language Fest in celebration of International Mother Language Day on 21 February, Adékúnmi Ọlátúnjí tells us about her experiences recording a podcast episode enquiring after people’s mother tongues. Her podcast episode forms part of a series of podcasts produced by SOAS World Languages Institute to celebrate UNESCO’s International Year of Indigenous Languages 2019. Producing this podcast episode was a lot of fun
Today on the ELAR Blog, ELDP Grantee Bill Parker tells us about the usefulness of wireless mics in language documentation. Wireless Mics in language documentation By Bill Parker The use of wireless mics is an industry standard in film and television, however in language documentation we largely rely on wired mics. For most of us, this is likely due to cost concerns and fear of unexpected technical problems. In this
Today on the ELAR blog, we are featuring ELDP grantee Anton Zykov’s project ‘Videography-based documentation of the language of Parsis in Gujarat and Maharashtra‘. Anton’s collection with ELAR focuses on Parsi Gujarati, an endangered language spoken exclusively by the Zoroastrian community living in India. Impact on community/speakers highlight: The project and its coverage triggered a correspondence between community members about the need to revive the level of knowledge and social prestige of
Today on the ELAR blog, we are featuring ELDP grantee Christian Döhler’s project ‘A comprehensive documentation of Bine – a language of Southern New Guinea‘. Christian’s collection with ELAR focuses on Bine, an underdescribed language of Southern New Guinea spoken by around 2000 speakers. Christian Döhler, from the Leibniz Zentrum für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft, Berlin, gives us his community and scientific highlights from his research from 2017-2019. https://vimeo.com/335119399 Community Highlight: computer literacy As part
Today on the ELAR blog, we are featuring ELDP grantee Alexandro Garcia-Laguia’s project ‘Documentation of Northern Alta, a Philippine Negrito language‘. Alex’s collection with ELAR focuses on Northern Alta, an endangered Negrito language of the Philippines. Alexandro Garcia Laguia, from the University of Barcelona, gives us his community and scientific highlights from his research from 2017-2018. Impact on the community and speakers: 1. The printed Alta grammars This year, the printed version