ELF Newsletter

The ELF newsletter is out and looks sharp. No fewer than 11 grants were made in 2006, benefitting projects for 12 languages and language groups: Arapaso (arj), Ghulfan (ghl), Kalabari (ijn), Karinya/Carib (car), Karapana (link to lineage), Kundal Shahi language (link to lineage), the signed Meemul Tziij complex (no Ethnologue entry), Pasi (listed as adi), Quichua/Ecuadorian (qvo), Southern Tiwa (tix), Tutudin (perhaps equivalent to tuu Tututni), Yakima Sahaptin (yak).

These languages represent a wide range of human culture over four continents. Projects include a children’s dictionary, dialect clarification, a language camp, and historical clarification of possibly the oldest documentable sign languages in the world.

Among the news is that ELF newsletter editor Nick Emlen is running a marathon to benefit the ELF, tomorrow, in Portland.

Get involved! In addition to joining the ELF, attend a lecture by Noam Chomsky on November 15, 2006, regarding language diversification to benefit the ELF. In addition to the lecture, there will be a separate reception.

Request to Help with Oroha (Oloha)

The Ethnologue lists Oroha (ora) as nearly extinct. Oroha is spoken in the Solomon Islands, an archipelago located just off of Papua New Guinea, in the upper right corner of this map (in the public domain):

Notes on Sámi

An endangered Finno-Ugric language, positive steps are being taken to promote this group of languages..

Sámi (or Saami) is a group of languages, evidently mutually unintelligible. See the Ethnologue entry for a classification breakdown.

The Sámi have lived in arctic Europe for thousands of years. Recalling learning about the Lapps of Lapland in elementary school, I was surprised to learn that “Lapp” is generally considered derogatory by the Sámi (Lapps) themselves, though the word Lapland appears to be acceptable as a geographical term.

Tsisinstsistots Dictionary Online

There is now a Tsisinstsistots (Cheyenne) dictionary online! Brought to the world by the good people at Chief Dull Knife College, the dictionary includes Tsisinstsistots > English and English > Tsisinstsistots sections. Abbreviations used in the dictionary are described on the Introduction page, which also includes links for printed versions of the dictionary and a CD-ROM, which costs $6 plus $3 for shipping or is free to copy from somebody else. Of the some 18,000 entries, about 7000 are recorded on the CD-ROM.

The online version has been reviewed on the Anggarrgoon blog and includes comments from Wayne Leman, one of the authors.

Language Ownership Rights

As reported in the Green Book¹, the Cochiti people do not feel their language should be written down. Stories and songs can be cultural property owned so that only the proper owner may tell or sing them as in the Pacific Northwest. Related to this is the question of whether non-native speakers should produce written materials of an endangered language and more generally, who is it that should be producing them as it is the person producing that will have control over the content rather than the collective culture.

This question is introduced, though not explored, in a recent New York Times article by Noam Cohen titled “Building Wikipedia in African languages”, available at the Interntional Herald Tribune.

My thanks to 용빈 말리 for the tip.

¹ “Introduction to the Pueblo Languages” by Leanne Hinton, p. 62, in The Green Book of Language Revitalization in Practice, 2001, Academic Press. ed. Leanne Hinton and Ken Hale.

Kodiak Alutiiq Phrasebook & CD

Order a phrasebook to help your conversational Kodiak Alutiiq! Filled with 20 sections, this 44-page booklet has a variety of vocabularly selected to help you learn greetings, numbers, weather, hunting, and other helpful words. The accompanying CD follows the booklet and works on both Windows and Macintosh computers.

To order, e-mail receptionist@alutiiqmuseum.com or telephone the Museum store at (907) 486-7004. You can pay by credit/debit card or by check. The price for the booklet and accompanying CD is $13 plus shipping, $1.75 by regular or $4.05 priority mail as of August 2006 within the US.

The booklet is copyrighted by the Alutiiq Museum and Archaeological Repository and was produced for a master’s project by April Gale Laktonen Counceller. Editing by Jeff Leer.