Marion Harry (1937–2019)

It is with great sadness that I report the passing of Mrs. Marion Harry of the Homalco First Nation. She was a fluent speaker of the Homalco language, a.k.a. Sliammon/Homalco/Klahoose dialect of the northernmost Coast Salish language. (The language has been referred to as Sliammon, Mainland (dialect) of Comox, or ʔayʔaǰuθəm.) She passed away on September 7, 2019, at the age of 82.

Reminder: Nominations for SSILA Archiving Award Due Oct. 1

This is a quick reminder that nominations for the SSILA Archiving Award are due on October 1, 2019.

This award highlights the importance of creating long-term archival materials that are accessible to all communities concerned, including heritage and language communities as well as scholarly communities. It is meant to encourage others in academia to value such work as more comparable to analytic research.

Please visit the award page for more details about the award and the nomination process. We look forward to receiving your nominations!

Read more about the SSILA Archiving Award here.

SSILA 2020 Call for Session Chairs

The SSILA Program Committee is seeking session chairs for our 2020 annual meeting in New Orleans. The meeting will be held on January 2–5.

Session chairs introduce speakers, moderate any discussion during the question-and-answer period, and remind speakers when the time allotted for their 20-minute talk is drawing to a close. Session chairs should hold a Ph.D. and be current SSILA members.

The following sessions are in need of a chair:

  • Thursday, January 2: Digital Tools for Lexicography and Orthography – 4:00PM-5:30PM
  • Thursday, January 2: Historical Linguistics 1 – 4:00PM-5:30PM
  • Thursday, January 2: Syntax 1 – 5:30PM-6:30PM
  • Thursday, January 2: Revitalization 1 – 5:30PM-6:30PM

  • Friday, January 3: Syntax 2 – 9:00AM-12:00PM
  • Friday, January 3: Historical Linguistics 2 – 9:00AM-12:00PM
  • Friday, January 3: Semantics 1 – 9:00AM-12:00PM Friday, January 3: Phonology – 2:00PM-5:00PM
  • Friday, January 3: Semantics 2 – 2:00PM-4:30PM
  • Friday, January 3: Archiving – 4:30PM-5:00PM

  • Saturday, January 4: Revitalization 2 – 9:00AM-11:00AM
  • Saturday, January 4: Morphology 1 – 9:00AM-11:00AM
  • Saturday, January 4: Syntax 3 – 9:00AM-11:00AM
  • Saturday, January 4: Language Acquisition – 2:00PM-3:00PM
  • Saturday, January 4: Morphology 2 – 2:00PM-3:00PM
  • Saturday, January 4: Sociolinguistics – 2:00PM-3:00PM
  • Saturday, January 4: Revitalization 3 – 3:00PM-5:00PM
  • Saturday, January 4: Phonetics – 3:00PM-5:00PM
  • Saturday, January 4: Language Contact – 3:00PM-5:00PM

  • Sunday, January 5: Morphophonology – 9:00AM-10:30AM
  • Sunday, January 5: Historical Linguistics 3 – 9:00AM-10:00AM
  • Sunday, January 5: Syntax 4 – 10:30AM-12:00PM
  • Sunday, January 5: Revitalization 4 – 10:00AM-12:00PM

To volunteer to chair a session, please add your name and university affiliation to the relevant session in the following link by September 30.

Click here to volunteer as a session chair.

Chairs will be assigned on a "first come, first served" basis. Please do not write your name in if there is already a volunteer for that session. Also, please do not volunteer to chair a session unless you are certain you will be attending the meeting.

Volunteers will be provided with a packet containing basic instructions and time cards to let speakers know how much time they have left.

Thank you in advance for your willingness to help!

Martin Kohlberger, SSILA Program Committee Coordinator

Job: University of Toronto (St. George Campus)

The Department of Linguistics, University of Toronto (St. George Campus), invites applications for one full-time teaching stream appointment at the rank of Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream, in the area of Indigenous Language Documentation and Revitalization in languages spoken in North America, preferably in Canada. The appointment is expected to begin July 1, 2020.

CFP: Amazônicas VIII

Amazônicas VIII will take place at the Federal University of Goiás (Goiânia, Brazil) from June 29th, 2020 through July 3rd, 2020. The symposia include "Nominal Classification: grammar, discourse, typology"; "The interplay between phonology and morphology"; and "Verbal art in indigenous languages of Amazonia: tradition and innovation." There will also be a symposium focused specifically on the Macro-Jê stock, and a general session. This is the first time that Amazônicas will host a general session in addition to the more specific symposia.

Calls for each of the symposia can be found in Portuguese, English, and Spanish at the Amazônicas website. Click on the tab AMAZONICAS VIII, in the upper right, for more information about the 2020 conference.

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Reminder: SSILA abstracts due Wednesday, July 17

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This is a reminder that abstracts for the Winter 2020 meeting of SSILA are due this upcoming Wednesday, July 17. This year's meeting is being held from January 2–5 in New Orleans, Louisiana, concurrently with the Linguistic Society of America.

Click here to view the complete abstract and submission guidelines.

SSILA looks forward to receiving your abstract submissions!

Letter from the President, concerning SSILA abstract requirement changes

As you might recall, the call for papers for the 2019 SSILA meeting suggested that submitters include in their abstract a brief discussion of broader impacts of their work. There was extensive discussion of this at the 2019 business meeting, and an ad hoc committee was struck to produce a proposal to be voted on by the membership. The statement from the ad hoc committee is included in this year’s call. It will be voted on after there has been an opportunity for submitters to try this out and there has been some discussion. The ad-hoc committee interrogated the current issues of what should be required for abstracts and how to evaluate those abstracts from not only an academic perspective but also the lenses of the Indigenous communities whose languages are the focus of SSILA. This has not been the norm of SSILA.

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Call for Papers: SSILA Winter 2020 Meeting

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Deadline for Abstracts: July 17, 2019

Location: New Orleans, LA

Dates: January 2–5, 2020

Please note the two significant changes in this call for papers that are different from previous years:

  1. The submission deadline has been moved back to July 17. This change comes as a consequence of the LSA having moved their deadline as well. Please keep this in mind as this is earlier than in previous years.

  2. The abstract requirements now include a description of the social outcomes / impacts / implications of the work presented. Details about this and a request for feedback on this trial will be addressed in a separate email.

View the complete abstract guidelines here.

Call for Papers

The Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas (SSILA) will hold its annual winter meeting jointly with the Linguistic Society of America (LSA) in New Orleans, LA on January 2–5, 2020. SSILA meetings allow scholars to present on a wide range of topics centered on any aspect of Indigenous languages of the Americas.

Information about the hotel and location can be found at the LSA website. Participants will be able to register for the meeting on the LSA website and reserve hotel rooms at reduced rates between September 1st, 2019 and December 11th, 2019.

SSILA welcomes abstracts for papers that present original research focusing on the linguistic study of the Indigenous languages of the Americas. Submitters must be members of SSILA.

Not yet a member of SSILA? Join here!

Abstract Submission

The deadline for receipt of all abstracts is on July 17th at 11:59 PM (Hawaii-Aleutian time). Please note that the deadline this year is two weeks earlier than in previous years. This is because the LSA submission deadline was changed to an earlier date this year, and SSILA endeavors to make acceptance decisions at the same time as the main LSA conference.

Abstracts should be submitted electronically, using the electronic submission website EasyChair. Consult the SSILA website for detailed instructions. Also, e-mail or hard-copy submissions will be accepted if arrangements are made in advance with the SSILA Program Committee Administrator, Martin Kohlberger (conferences@ssila.org). Abstracts may be submitted in English, Spanish, or Portuguese.

Click here to view the complete abstract guidelines.

Click here to go to the EasyChair submission page.