The Dynamic Language Infrastructure – Documenting Endangered Languages (DLI-DEL) Fellowships are offered as part of a joint, multi-year funding program of NEH and the National Science Foundation (NSF) to develop and advance scientific and scholarly knowledge concerning endangered human languages. DLI-DEL Fellowships support individuals (not institutional or collaborative projects) who are junior or senior linguists, linguistic anthropologists, and sociolinguists to conduct research on one or more endangered or moribund languages. DLI-DEL Fellowships prioritize scholarly analysis and publication, including but not limited to lexicons, grammars, databases, peer-reviewed articles, and monographs. Awards also support fieldwork and other activities relevant to digital recording, documenting, and sustainable archiving of endangered languages.

Eligibility:

American citizens who live and work anywhere in the world and are linguists, linguistic anthropologists, or sociolinguists who specialize in documenting endangered languages.
US residents who live in the US and who specialize in the above fields are eligible to apply.
Applicants must not be enrolled in degree programs. DLI-DEL fellowships do not fund graduate students. However, if applicants have completed all their degree requirements and the only remaining step is degree conferral, they can apply provided they submit a letter from their dean or department chair that attests to those facts. If such a letter is missing from the application, the proposal will be considered unresponsive.
Adjuncts, independent scholars, tribal linguists, retired faculty members, non-tenured and tenure-track faculty members, and contractual teaching-staff are welcome to apply.

Deadlines:

Deadline to submit applications is September 13, 2023; submitted through grants.gov.
Expected notification date is April 30, 2024.

Period of Performance:

The shortest period of performance is 6 months, and the maximum period of funding is 12 months, part-time equivalent, or a combination of both. The amount of funding is $5,000 per month, or pro-rated equivalent for half time:

DLI-DEL Fellowships program supports individuals who work between half time and full time on their projects. You may combine part- and full-time work, but you must work at least half time (50%), and you can split your term into two separate active periods. The active periods must be at least three months each.
If you work full time on your project, you must forgo teaching and other major activities. If you combine a part-time award with teaching or another job, you must carry a reduced class load, or work load, during the period of performance. Awards will be reduced to reflect the smaller time commitment when you work part time or for fewer than the equivalent of 12 full-time months on the NEH project.

Please check the posted Notice of Funding Opportunity, the pre-recorded webinar, the Frequently Asked Questions document, the list of recently funded projects, and posted sample narratives on the DLI-DEL Fellowship landing page (see under Samples Application Narratives, on the left hand-side of the page) for more information.

If you have any questions, please e-mail them to delfel@neh.gov and staff will be happy to help you.