Newsletter, Spring 2009: Oklahoma, The Linguists on tour, and Paraguay

News from April to June 2009, in two pages. Read it: Spring 2009 newsletter

In this issue:

• Oklahoma. In April 2009, Dr. Greg Anderson gave two papers at the Oklahoma Workshop on Native American Languages at Northeastern State University in Tahlequah: “North American Perspectives on the Global Language Extinction Crisis: The Oklahoma and Western North America Language Hotspots”, with Dr. K. David Harrison and Jeremy Fahringer, and “Building the Siletz Athabaskan Talking Dictionary”, about the Siletz Dee-ni dictionary, co-authored by Harrison and Alfred “Bud” Lane III of the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians.
• The Linguists on tour. Dr. Harrison screened and discussed the film at universities across the U.S. from January to April, ending at the University of British Columbia in May; Dr. Anderson took it to the University of New Mexico, the University of Oregon and two film festivals.
• Paraguay. In May, an Enduring Voices trip visited three communities in the Central South America hotspot: the Ybytoso Ishir (Chamacoco), the Maka and the Toba-Qom. The team recorded words, sentences and short narratives in each language, brought bound copies of a first-year Ishir textbook and school supplies, and gave a Language Technology Kit to a member of the Ishir community in Asunción who had been self-financing a dictionary of the language. Anna Luisa Daigneault stayed until the end of June to help with training. See the field report.
• Ho. Fellow Anna Pucilowski, back from India, continued work on the Ho Talking Dictionary, funded by the Genographic Legacy Fund.
• National Geographic. On June 10, 2009, Dr. Anderson and Dr. Harrison spoke on a panel at the Explorers Symposium in Washington, DC, with Dr. Enric Sala, Dr. Mike Fay and Dr. Jared Diamond.