HELP for Endangered Legacy Collections

HELP for Endangered Legacy Collections is a new initiative from within the Committee on Endangered Languages and their Preservation (CELP) to assist in the digitization, archiving, and processing of endangered language data. This initiative attempts to tackle two concerns within our field: (1) the fact that many senior researchers nearing retirement need assistance in digitizing, archiving and processing their legacy collections of endangered language data and (2) the fact that there is an increasing number of graduate students who wish to undertake work on endangered languages but are not able to collect their own data due to a variety of reasons, e.g., travel restrictions (especially in the wake of the current global pandemic), lack of funding, family obligations, health concerns, and so on.

Call for Papers 2021 American Name Society

The American Name Society (ANS), a sister society of SSILA, is now inviting proposals for papers for its next annual conference. After serious deliberation of an official proposal made on the 8th of May 2020, the Executive Council of the American Name Society unanimously voted to hold the 2021 Annual Conference online. All presentation sessions will be held online during the four days of the conference. This means that our conference will NOT be held in conjunction with the LSA meeting, which is still slated to be held in January 2021 in San Francisco.

DELAMAN Award

The Digital Endangered Languages and Musics Archives Network (DELAMAN) announces that the deadline for nominations for the DELAMAN Award has been extended to 15 July 2020.

DLI-DEL Position Paper & Petition

The Documenting Endangered Languages (DLI-DEL) Program, now NSF Dynamic Language Infrastructure-NEH Documenting Endangered Languages (DLI-DEL), has played a crucial role in the realization of United States federal policy to preserve, protect, and promote the rights and freedom of communities to practice and develop Native languages. For over fifteen years, DLI-DEL has supported projects to advance research and education across many fields of inquiry, providing resources for projects that have strong intellectual merit and broader impacts. However, the recent repositioning of programs within the Directorate of Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences at the NSF has resulted in the merger of DLI-DEL with Linguistics and the loss of a dedicated program officer, a move which is counter to the NSF’s own strategic plan. This has the potential to exacerbate an already serious threat to information and insight on our collective human cognitive capacity, and to our cultural and historical traditions. This document outlines recommendations for the continuation and growth of DLI-DEL.

Message from the SSILA President - 2021 SSILA Annual Meeting

We hope this email finds you well given the circumstances. We are writing to let you know of our plans for the 2021 conference. SSILA Board members have been in constant communication as events unfold all over the world. After careful consideration we have decided to move our annual conference to a virtual format for this meeting. We are all very concerned about the effects this pandemic has on the populations we are very closely in relationships with, particularly elder Indigenous language speakers. Furthermore, the uncertain and unpredictable circumstances related to travelling, social gatherings and academic (and personal) budgets has led us to believe this is in the best interest of everyone in our society.

Call for Nominations - SSILA Archiving Award, in honor of Michael Krauss

SSILA is pleased to announce a call for nominations for the SSILA Archiving Award in honor of Ken Hale. This award highlights the importance of creating long-term archived materials that are accessible to all communities concerned, including heritage and source communities as well as scholarly communities. It is meant to encourage others in academia to value such work as more comparable to analytic research.

Indigenous Linguist – Department of Anthropology, University of Winnipeg

The Department of Anthropology is seeking an Indigenous linguist who will help build an interdisciplinary Indigenous languages focus at The University of Winnipeg. We are seeking an individual with training in descriptive linguistics and/or language documentation and who has experience developing curriculum, programming, and research relevant to the revitalization of Indigenous languages in Manitoba and neighbouring regions. The successful applicant will be an effective teacher whose scholarship is grounded in community-engaged practices and methodologies and who has a demonstrated ability to work collaboratively in an interdisciplinary environment. The ability to speak an Indigenous language spoken in Manitoba or neighbouring regions is an asset.

Call for Papers - 13th International Workshop on Writing Systems and Literacy (AWLL13)

Call Deadline: April 15, 2020

The 13th International Workshop on Writing Systems and Literacy meeting will continue to bring together researchers from diverse research backgrounds and from various countries, the Association of Written Language and Literacy's thirteenth gathering (AWLL13) will be the first to be hosted in the USA at the University of North Carolina.