Australian government opens applications for funding

The Australian government has allocated 12 million dollars (the AUD is currently approximately equivalent to the USD) over the next four years to support indigenous languages. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community groups are invited to submit applications through the end of May to receive funding from this allocation.

Emma Waterman has written an article on this opportunity with an interesting take on the need for non-computer solutions. Read “Digital Not Always the Answer.”

See also the government page “New Indigenous Languages Support funding open for applications” for information on how to apply.

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International Linguistics Olympiad in Ljubljana

From 29 July to 4 August, the International Linguistics Olympiad will be held in Slovenia, the tenth of this annual competition for secondary school students. With roots going back to 1965 in Moscow, the contest involves competitors from at least 12 countries according to this year’s website.

Also called the International Olympiad in Linguistics, the contest features linguistics problems from living and dead languages. No specific knowledge of the language is needed, but contestants must be able to use their powers of analysis and reasoning to come up with the correct answer.

Sample problems are provided, and include such languages as Aymara (aym), Basque (eus), Guarani (gug), Lalana Chinantec (cnl) and Manam (mva).

Last year’s problems included one on Menominee (mez). To learn about the preparations of the Australian team, read “It may be semantics, but linguistics can be a team event.”

Wisconsin grants – up to USD 35K

The American Indian Studies Program has a budget of USD 222,800 for language revitalization grants for 2011 to 2013. The AISP is a part of the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction in the United States.

The grants will be awarded to public school districts and cooperative educational service agencies that partner with a tribal government. Grants will generally be up to USD 35,000, and potentially higher in cases of consortium applications.

The deadline for application submissions is October 14. See the AISP page for further information and a link to the application.

For tribal nations and educational associations located in Wisconsin, see the Wisconsin Indian Education Association.

Volkswagen Foundation grant deadline September 15

Since 1962, the independent Volkswagen Foundation has been funding research projects, and endangered language documentation projects have received grants since at least 2005.

According to their 2010 grants page, the following projects received funding last year:

• East African Summer School in Language Documentation: Methods and Technology – a two and-a-half week course
• A multi-media documentation of two endangered Bantu Languages of Cameroon: Bubia (bbx) and Isubu (szv)
• Pots, plants and people: an interdisciplinary documentation of Baïnouk (family) knowledge systems

According to the information sheet “Documentation of Endangered Languages,” grants are provided up to 300,000 euro, and the period may be up to three years with a renewal, the total not lasting longer than five years. The submission deadline is September 15.

See “Documentation of Endangered Languages” for more information.

Further work on the Lenape Talking Dictionary

The Lenape Talking Dictionary is a growing collection of 14,000 words with almost 5,700 sound files and over 1,400 sample sentences. Lenape refers to the southern dialects of Unami (unm), spoken in what are now the US states of Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

According to “The Lenape Language Preservation Project” on the website of the Delaware Tribe of Indians, the Lenape Talking Dictionary got its start when a 1997 survey showed a large number of people interested in learning to speak Lenape. In 2002, a grant allowed the Lenape Language Preservation Project to construct a database, which was put on the Internet.

This year, the funds from a Documenting Endangered Languages grant are allowing further work on the project. One of the new features coming is the ability to search for words in Lenape as well as for just parts of words.

Here are three words from the dictionary:

• pënaelìntàmhikàn – computer
• xanikw – squirrel
• selahtinalìtin – a game similar to jackstraws, also known as pick-up sticks and mikado

One of the nice features of the Lenape Talking Dictionary website is an introduction of the Lenape speakers who provided recordings for the dictionary.

Language Bowl

A spelling bee is a contest where participants must correctly spell words. Widespread throughout the English-speaking world because of the difficult nature of English spelling, the spelling bee is a great way to draw attention to the importance of spelling and provides a motivation to students to learn spelling.

Since at least 2007, the Minnesota Indian Education Association has been holding “quiz bowls” to encourage high school students to learn Ojibwe (oji). To continue this motivation at the university level, the Fifth Ojibwe Language Quiz Bowl was held this past week at Augsburg College.

This post was inspired by and based on “A Friendly Competition in Ojibwemowin.”

Update: Nixyaawii Community High School evidently has a language bowl coming up on April 27 (the link is for last year). It appears the language used is Umatilla (uma).

Grant form coming for GLF grants

The Genographic Project provides funding through its Genographic Legacy Fund. Awards are up to USD 25,000 Submissions are due June 15.

At this time, there is no standard application form, though one is planned to make the application process easier. It should be available in May.

This post was inspired by “Grant Opportunity — Genographic Legacy Fund” on the Talking Alaska blog.

Murrinh-Patha

University of Melbourne Senior Lecturer Rachel Nordlinger documents and studies Australian languages. Murrinh-Patha (mwf), a language spoken in the Wadeye area in the Northern Territory, has been the focus of much of her work.

Recently awarded a grant by the Australian Research Council, she and three colleagues will be studying how children acquire Murrinh-Patha. First language acquisition is an important topic in linguistics and it is expected this work will yield new information on how language is acquired.

Read more at “Identity dies when tongues are silenced” on The Age.

This post was inspired by “Language News: Identity dies when tongues are silenced” on the LangEducator blog.

ELF Grant Submission Deadline April 20

The submission deadline for Endangered Language Fund proposals is April 20. Grants will be made in amounts up to USD 4,000. The target language must be in danger of disappearing within two generations.

See “Request for Proposals” for further details.

$500K Grant for BC First Nations Language Teachers

On Thursday, the Ministry of Advanced Education of British Columbia, Canada, announced a CAD 500,000 grant to the to the First Nations Education Steering Committee Society. The grant will assist First Nations in the province develop and implement programs for teachers of First Nations languages.

Specifically, programs for Developmental Standard Term Certificates will be aided. The DSTC requires three years of university training and is intended to provide a way for those with practical skills to teach kindergarten through twelfth grade. The DTSC is issued by the British Columbia College of Teachers.

Read the BC government announcement.

Native speakers of First Nations languages may also be interested in the First Nations Language Teacher Certificate, also available through the BCCT.