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ONLINE RESOURCES FOR ENDANGERED LANGUAGES

Language endangerment and revitalisation

Language endangerment

Anggarrgoon: Claire Bowern
A blog where a linguist documenting Australian languages recounts her experiences and discusses issues in language endangerment and documentation.
BABEL: Ole Stig Andersen
A Danish-English bilingual site on endangered languages and language issues, often with multimedia.
Bibliography on language endangerment and language revitalisation: Tasaku Tsunoda
A bibliography dealing with language endangerment, language death, language revitalisation, language policy and planning, and documentation.
The Birth and Death of Languages: David W. Lightfoot
In this video, Dr. David W. Lightfoot discusses how and why languages live and die.
Centre d'Etudes des Langues Indigènes d'Amérique: CELIA
Site includes back issues of the journal Amerindia.
Diversité linguistique et culturelle: ESCOM
A variety of videos exploring endangered languages from an academic perspective.
Endangered Language Resources: David Nash
David Nash's endangered language links.
Endangered Languages: SIL
SIL on language endangerment and its policies on it.
Endangered Languages List: LINGUIST List
A mailing list on endangered language issues.
Endangered Languages on Film, Video, and DVD: Ole Stig Andersen
This overview lists, comments and links to a majority, the author believes, of the available TV/Film/Web-documentaries and features in/on endangered languages.
Endangered Languages: A Webguide to Government Information Resources: Anon.
This webguide presents government information resources related to endangered and minority languages.
Enduring Voices: National Geographic & Living Tongues
An interactive map of “language hotspots” intended to promote awareness of language loss.
Ethnologue: SIL International, Raymond G. Gordon
An encyclopedic reference work attempting to catalogue all of the world’s known living languages , 6,912 by its count.
The Intangible Heritage Messenger: Endangered Languages: UNESCO
This special issue of the Messenger is devoted to UNESCO’s Endangered Languages Programme, one of the main activities of the Intangible Heritage Section.
Jabal al-Lughat: Lameen Souag
An eclectic linguistics blog focusing mainly on endangered languages in and around the Arab world.
Language Death Bibliography: United Bible Societies
A bibliography of more than 300 works relating to language death.
Linguapax: UNESCO
"Promotion of policies that protect language diversity and that foster the learning of several languages constitutes the basic orientation of the Linguapax Institute."
Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages: Living Tongues
The mission of the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages is to promote the documentation, maintenance, preservation, and revitalization of endangered languages worldwide through linguist-aided, community-driven multi-media language documentation projects.
Lost Tongues and the Politics of Language Endangerment: Salikoko S. Mufwene
What are the factors that drive a language to the brink of extinction, and what allows others to prosper--or simply to survive? Salikoko Mufwene, professor and chair of the department of linguistics at the University of Chicago, explains how globalization, colonialism, politics, and race relations affect how and why we speak the way we do.
Salikoko Mufwene: Goodies: Salikoko S. Mufwene
An extensive selection of online articles, many related to language endangerment and change.
Some 2000 Language Reference Resources: Harald Hammarström
A bibliography of reference grammars available in the University libraries of Gothenburg, Stockholm, Uppsala, Leiden (incl. Kerns and KITLV), Kungliga Biblioteket or the EVA, MPG Library in Leipzig.
Teaching Kids About Language Change, Language Endangerment, and Language Death: Kristin Denham
"Every time I tell students in my classes about language death and language endangerment, they are surprised and shocked, not only at the information itself, but that they had never heard about it before... Students should have such basic knowledge about language change, language endangerment, and language death well before they happen upon that information in a college classroom."
Transient Languages & Cultures: PARADISEC
A multi-authored academic blog dedicated largely to language endangerment and documentation, with special focus on the Pacific.
"Une langue disparaît tous les quinze jours": Dominique Simonnet
An interview with Claude Hagège, author of Halte à la mort des langues.
UNESCO Red Book of Endangered Languages: UNESCO
The UNESCO Endangered Languages Programme has as its mission to promote and safeguard endangered languages and linguistic diversity as an essential part of the living heritage of humanity.
What Is An Endangered Language?: Anthony Woodbury, LSA
Frequently asked questions about endangered languages for the non-specialist.
From Generation to Generation: Survival and Maintenance of Canada's Aboriginal Languages Within Families, Communities and Cities: Mary Jane Norris and Lorna Jantzen
This paper explores the survival and maintenance of Aboriginal languages in Canada, focusing on the critical factor of language transmission from one generation to another. It also considers the challenges of language maintenance outside of Aboriginal communities within cities, and provides an overview and classification of endangered and viable Aboriginal languages, with demographic measures of language use, population size and average age of speakers. Factors affecting language survival and maintenance are explored.

Language revitalisation

The Aboriginal Language Program Planning Workbook: Barbara Kavanagh
This workbook is meant to be used in conjunction with the Aboriginal Language Program Planning Handbook, to facilitate group discussions and activities related to the development and implementation of a language program.
Applying Computer Multimedia Storytelling Website in Foreign Language Learning: Wenli Tsou, Weichun Wang, and Yenjun Tzeng
A multimedia storytelling website was designed as a teaching tool. The website contains the following feature modules: Accounts administration module, Multimedia story composing module, and Story re-playing module.
FirstVoices: First Peoples' Cultural Foundation
Online language learning portals for a number of Native Canadian languages.
Guidelines for Strengthening Indigenous Languages: Alaska Native Knowledge Network
The guidance offered in these pages is intended to provide assistance to the local language advisory committees created under Senate Bill 103 that are responsible for making recommendations regarding the future of the heritage language in their community.
Indigenous Language Institute: Indigenous Language Institute
ILI is intended to facilitate community-based initiatives for language revitalization through collaboration with other appropriate groups and organizations, and promote public awareness of this crisis.
Language Revitalisation Policy: An Analytical Survey, Theoretical Framework, Policy Experience and Application to Te Reo Māori: Francois Grin, Francois Vaillancourt
Examines the options for Maori language revitalisation.
Language Revival Links: Logoi.com
Some links on language revival.
Myaamia Project: Miami Nation, Miami University
The Miami language is part of the central Algonquian linguistic family and shares close features with Ojibwa-Potawatomi-Ottawa, Mesquaki-Kickapoo and Shawnee. Since 1995, the Miami Nation has been actively involved in language reclamation. We use the term reclamation because the last of our conversational speakers passed on in the early 1960s. Reclamation implies a reconstructive process, which for our case involves the use of written records of Miami-Illinois spanning nearly 300 years.
National Indian Telecommunications Institute: National Indian Telecommunications Institute
NITI's goal is to employ advanced technology to serve American Indians, Native Hawaiians and Alaska Natives in the areas of education, economic development, language and cultural preservation, tribal policy issues and self-determination.
Native Languages of the Americas: Endangered Language Revitalization and Revival: Laura Redish
A simple introduction to language revitalisation for the non-specialist.
Revitalising Indigenous Languages: ed. Jon Reyhner, Gina Cantoni, Robert N. St. Clair, and Evangeline Parsons Yazzie
Revitalizing Indigenous Languages is a compilation of papers presented at the Fifth Annual Stabilizing Indigenous Languages Symposium on May 15 and 16, 1998, at the Galt House East in Louisville, Kentucky.
RNLD: Resource Network for Linguistic Diversity: Margaret Florey, Nick Thieberger
The Resource Network for Linguistic Diversity aims to link people involved in language work who may be speakers of indigenous languages and their descendents, linguists, staff of language centres, educators (in many different educational settings), archivists, specialists in the development of appropriate technology, and key regional institutions (community, government, nongovernment).
Rosetta Stone: Endangered Language Program: Rosetta Stone
Commercial technology development for endangered language revitalisation.
Stabilizing Indigenous Languages: Gina Cantoni (ed.), Northern Arizona University
A set of essays on indigenous language endangerment, maintenance, and revitalisation in the United States.
Studies in Language Endangerment: Monash University
Courses in Language Endangerment at Monash University aim to provide linguists, language maintenance practitioners and speakers of minority languages with specialist training in documenting endangered languages in the particular social and political contexts in which they are spoken. Courses range from Masters level to Faculty Certificate. Students in Language Endangerment are required to be affiliated with a language community or organisation which is engaged in language maintenance.
Te Kohanga Reo: Te Kohanga Reo
A Maori language and culture movement whose "language nest" method is considered one of the more successful approaches to revitalisation.
Teaching Indigenous Languages: Northern Arizona University
At the heart of this site are 97 full text papers from the 1997 through 2003 Stabilizing Indigenous Languages conferences as well as the 2000 Learn in Beauty and 1989 Native American Language Issues conferences published in Nurturing Native Languages (2003), Indigenous Languages Across the Community (2002), Learn in Beauty: Indigenous Education for a New Century (2000), Revitalizing Indigenous Languages (1999), Teaching Indigenous Languages (1997), and Effective Language Education Practices & Native Language Survival (1990). In addition, there is a link to Stabilizing Indigenous Languages, which includes papers, session summaries, and other materials from the 1994 and 1995 conferences. This site also contains articles on Indigenous language policy, dropout prevention, and teacher training along with over 50 columns from the newsletter of the National Association for Bilingual Education and other related material.
Technology-Enhanced Language Revitalisation: University of Arizona
A set of resources on uses of technology in revitalising Native American languages.
Terralingua: Terralingua
Terralingua "supports the integrated protection, maintenance and restoration of the biocultural diversity of life - the world's biological, cultural, and linguistic diversity - through an innovative program of research, education, policy and on-the-ground action."
Tuakana Teina: Maori Language Commission
The tuakana-teina project has been developed in response to an increasing demand for creative ways to learn to speak the Māori language, and for opportunities to use the language. The tuakana-teina project is based on the premise that each Māori speaker 'adopts' a person who wishes to learn to speak Māori. The Māori speaker assumes the 'tuakana' role in the relationship and continually speaks Māori to the person wishing to learn (the 'teina') as often as possible in everyday settings about everyday things.
UNESCO Culture Sector – Safeguarding Endangered Languages: UNESCO
The UNESCO Endangered Languages Programme has as its mission to promote and safeguard endangered languages and linguistic diversity as an essential part of the living heritage of humanity.
UNESCO Register of Good Practices in Language Preservation: UNESCO
The purpose of the Register of Good Practices in Language Preservation, a project of UNESCO's Endangered Languages Programme, is to identify, document, and render visible as well as accessible past and current practices that have proven to be successful in the protection of languages and language communities.
Will Indigenous Languages Survive?: Michael Walsh, Annual Review of Anthropology
This review explores efforts in language revitalisation and documentation and the engagement with Indigenous peoples.

Languages of Africa

Chadic Newsletter Online: Various
News related to the study of Chadic languages.
Ega Web Archive: Dafydd Gibbon
A repository of recordings and information on Ega.
Languages of Zambia: Lee S. Bickmore
A bibliography of Zambian languages organised by location and language name.
Tawalt: Madi Mohamed
A forum and collection of materials on Berber/Tamazight languages, especially Libyan ones.
Web Resources for African Languages: Jouni Maho
An extensive collection of African language links, including a select bibliography.

Languages of America

Aboriginal Peoples Survey 2001 - initial findings: Well-being of the non-reserve Aboriginal Population: Statistics Canada
Includes detailed statistics on Aboriginal language acquisition in Canada.
Alaskool: University of Alaska Anchorage
Online materials about Alaska Native history, education, languages, and cultures.
Canada's Aboriginal Languages: The Atlas of Canada
Maps and statistics on Aboriginal languages in Canada.
Center for the Study of Indigenous Languages of the West: University of Colorado
The CSILW is devoted to conducting research on the Native American languages of the western United States, including the Siouan, Caddoan, and Arapahoan groups.
Cheyenne Dictionary Project: Chief Dull Knife College
A dictionary of Cheyenne, an endangered language of the western US.
Dakota Language / Nakona Language Lessons: Fort Peck Community College
Sells language learning materials for Dakota / Nakona; three sample lessons each are online.
Dying Tongues: In-Forum
A special report on the endangerment of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara languages for a popular audience.
Endangered Native American Languages: What Is to Be Done, and Why?: James Crawford
Examines the situation of Native American languages in the US and the causes of endangerment.
Etnolingüística: línguas indígenas da América do Sul: Various
A discussion forum and extensive link library on Native South American languages.
The First Nations Languages of British Columbia: Bill Poser
More than thirty languages are spoken by the native people of British Columbia. This site provides information about these languages, much of it in the form of bibliographic information and links to other sites containing more detailed information on particular languages and other relevant topics.
Indigenous Peoples in Brazil: Instituto Socioambiental
Information about the indigenous peoples of Brazil, including extensive bibliographies and links.
Karuk Language Resources: Karuk Language Program et al.
A set of resources developed by and for Karuk learners of Karuk.
Lakhota Language Consortium: Lakhota Language Consortium
"Revitalising Lakhota, one child at a time."
Potawatomi Language and Culture: Donald Perrot
A site dedicated to the preservation, revitalisation, and dissemination of the Potawatomi language.
Project for the Documentation of the Languages of Mesoamerica (PDLMA): Terrence Kaufman, John Justeson and Roberto Zavala Maldonado, directors
This site presents the aims, history, and results of research by the Project for the Documentation of the Languages of Mesoamerica, internally known as the "Snake Jaguar Project".
The Siouan Languages Bibliography: John P. Boyle
The purpose of this web site is to bring together in one place a searchable bibliography of all the linguistic and language related work done on the Siouan-Catawban languages.
Siouan Texts: Jan F. Ullrich
A large number of Lakota/Dakota/Assiniboin texts.
Task Force on Aboriginal Cultures and Languages: Task Force on Aboriginal Cultures and Languages
The Task Force on Aboriginal Languages and Cultures was mandated to conduct research and make recommendations to the Minister of Canadian Heritage on the preservation, revitalization and promotion of Aboriginal (First Nation, Inuit and Métis) languages. They have submitted a Foundational Report.
Yurok Language Project: Juliette Blevins, Andrew Garrett, University of California, Berkeley
Includes a variety of interesting online materials for learning and studying Yurok, an endangered Native American language of California. It seeks "to develop a documentary corpus of Yurok that is as comprehensive as possible and contributes as much as possible to understanding the complexities of the Yurok language."

Languages of Asia

Endangered Languages of Indigenous Peoples of Siberia: IEA RAS
At least some 30 languages in the region of Siberia can be seen as endangered. This site includes descriptions and bibliographies, as well as data and technical devices.
Formosan Language Archive: Academia Sinica
The aims of this project are to collect, conserve, edit and disseminate via the world wide web a virtual library of language and linguistic resources permitting access to recorded and transcribed Formosan data collections.
Richard Strand's Nuristan Site: Richard Strand
This site contains previously unpublished material on the linguistics and ethnography of Nuristân and neighboring regions, collected and analyzed by Richard F. Strand over the last thirty years.
South Asian Linguistics: John Peterson
An online bibliography for seldom studied and endangered languages of South Asia. The main emphasis here is on recent linguistic works which may not yet be known to the larger academic community, although many older standard works have also been included as well as related non-linguistic material, where this is available. “South Asia” here includes India, Nepal, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and Tibet.
Tai and Tibeto-Burman Languages of Assam: Stephen Morey
Searchable texts in languages of Assam, several endangered.
Kattang Language Revitalisation: Many Rivers Aboriginal Language Centre
An effort to help revive the Kattang language.
OzPapersOnline: Claire Bowern
A blog with notices of recent papers on the Indigenous languages of Australia.

Languages of Europe

EuroLang: European Bureau for Lesser-Known Languages
Eurolang® is a specialist niche news agency covering topics related to lesser-used languages, linguistic diversity, stateless nations and national minorities within the European Union.
EuroMosaic: European Commission
In 1992, wishing to take stock of the situation of the various language communities in Europe, The Commission initiated a study on minority language groups in the European Union. The purpose of the study, entitled "Euromosaic", was to find out about the different regional and minority languages in existence and to establish their potential for production and reproduction, and the difficulties they encounter in doing so.
European Bureau for Lesser-Known Languages: European Bureau for Lesser-Known Languages
The European Bureau for Lesser-Used Languages (EBLUL) is a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) promoting languages and linguistic diversity. It is based on a network of Member State Committees (MSCs) in all the ‘old' 15 EU Member States and many of the new Member States that have joined the EU in May 2004.

Languages of Oceania

Aboriginal Languages of Australia: David Nathan
This site has annotated links to 231 resources for about 80 languages. About 35% of these resources are produced or published by Indigenous people.
AusAnthrop: Laurent Dousset
The AusAnthrop site is dedicated to research and resources in anthropology, for academics as well as the layman. Special accent is on Aboriginal Australia, and more specifically on the Aborigines of the Western Desert cultural bloc.
Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database: Robert Blust et al.
This database contains 93,074 lexical items from 453 languages spoken throughout the Pacific region. These languages all belong to the Austronesian language family, which is the largest family in the world.
Lontar Page: Students at Johann Wolfgang Goethe Universitaet
An introduction to the tradition of reading and writing literature on the leaves of the lontar palm.
National Indigenous Languages Survey Report 2005: AIATSIS
A review of the current state of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander language use across Australia as well as policy recommendations designed to improve those circumstances.
State of Indigenous Languages in Australia - 2001: P. McConvell and N. Thieberger
This paper documents the state of Aboriginal languages and the efforts being made to maintain them.