ELAP Workshop: Endangered Languages and Literacy

Saturday 3rd December 2005
9.30am-6.00pm, Brunei Gallery, SOAS

Booking essential*, see below for more information.

Workshop

Endangered languages are often unwritten, and even if a written tradition exists for them, literacy in dominant languages tends to be more widespread than literacy in the endangered language. This workshop aims to discuss the complicated interplay of existing writing traditions, the dynamics and literacy traditions of surrounding languages, as well as phonological, applied, psycho- and sociolinguistic issues in the promotion of literacy and the development of orthographies for endangered language communities. We seek to identify good practice in this area. There will be case studies on endangered languages, as well as overview presentations on geographical areas and theoretically oriented presentations from different areas of linguistics, language learning and teaching research, as well as language planning.

Preliminary Programme

Speaker	Title
Frank Seifart, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany:	Orthography development for endangered languages
Uta Papen, University of Lancaster:	A social practices view of literacy - case studies from Namibia
Justin Watkins, SOAS, London:	Literacy in Wa and Khumi: evolution and ownership of post-missionary writing systems in Burma and China
Graham Furniss, SOAS, London	Reflections on making scripts: the case of Hausa
Yonas M. Asfaha, University of Tilburg, The Netherlands	Multiscriptal Literacy in Eritrea: the use of three scripts (Ge'ez, Latin and Arabic) in society and schools
Mary Raymond, SOAS, London	Vernacular languages and literacy in Papua New Guinea: the accidental and the planned
Friederike Lüpke, SOAS, London:	Arabic-based literacies in African languages: a challenge for language planning
David Nathan, SOAS and Eva Csato, Uppsala University	Multiliteracy in multimedia

*Booking information To attend the workshop, you need to submit a booking form by 5.00pm on Wednesday 30th November. The cost of the Workshop is £10.00 for Full registration or £5.00 for Student registration. Morning and afternoon tea, coffee and biscuits will be provided.