The Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Project  The Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Project

Academic Programme (ELAP)

The Endangered Languages Academic Programme (ELAP) is situated within SOAS' Department of Linguistics. ELAP conducts postgraduate teaching and research on the theory and practice of language documentation and description. Our goal is to develop the skills of those currently engaged in endangered language documentation and to train the next generation of language documenters.

ELAP offers courses including:

Blue arrow See the Linguistics Department Course Handbook 2010-11 for details.


ELAP staff consists of a Professor in Field Linguistics, 3 Lecturers in Language Documentation and Description, two post-doctoral fellows, and an Administrator. In addition, we have a further post-doctoral fellow and a Visiting Professor funded by ELDP grants. Our research covers languages of Africa, Asia, the Americas, and Aboriginal Australia. For more details see the Staff page.

We currently have 17 MA and 13 PhD enrolled students.

ELAP also offers a comprehensive programme of public lectures, seminars, and workshops, and we collaborate with the Endangered Languages Archive (ELAR) staff in running research seminars, and training courses for ELDP grantees.

Each year ELAP publishes Language Documentation and Description, a volume of papers on theoretical and practical aspects of language documentation. With ELAR we also publish multimedia materials on CD-ROM.

Visiting ELAP

Some of our workspace in the new Research Centre at SOAS is available for visitors. We welcome visiting researchers, especially those coming to London for several months or more, and we may be able to assist with facilitating visits and co-ordinating funding applications. For further details see the visitors' page.

Education at SOAS

SOAS is highly regarded for its academic excellence. SOAS' academic staff constitute the largest concentration of scholars concerned with Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, at any university. The Linguistics Department at SOAS (within which we operate) was the first Linguistics Department to be created in Britain.

SOAS is a truly international university, with about a third of our students coming from overseas. Our location in the heart of London means that a diverse array of cultural, arts, entertainment and social opportunities are always nearby. For more information about studying at SOAS and living in London, please see SOAS Information for Prospective Students.

Her Majesty the Queen has presented the Faculty of Languages & Cultures at SOAS with a prestigious Queen’s Anniversary Prize for Higher Education at a ceremony at Buckingham Palace on 19 February 2010.The Faculty was recognised for the excellence, breadth and depth of its teaching in the languages of Africa, Asia and the Middle East.