Newsletter, Fall 2010: a busy year for Living Tongues

Our letter to supporters looking back on 2010, in three pages. Read it: Fall 2010 newsletter

In this issue:

National Geographic Fellows. Institute Directors Dr. Gregory D. S. Anderson and Dr. K. David Harrison were appointed National Geographic Fellows.
Papua New Guinea. From February to April 2010, Fellow Danielle Barth collected several thousand words in Matugar village, the start of the Matugar Panau Talking Dictionary and the first attempt to systematically document the language. In July and August, Fellow Don Daniels worked in Panim village, Madang Province, laying the groundwork for a Panim Talking Dictionary.
Language revitalization. In spring 2010, an Enduring Voices workshop in Santa Fe, New Mexico, hosted by the Indigenous Language Institute, trained participants from Paraguay, India, Papua New Guinea, the Sac and Fox of Oklahoma and the Winnemem Wintu of California to turn their recordings into books, digital storybooks and short videos. See the workshop report.
India. In June we began documenting the Remo (Bonda) language of Orissa with a one-year National Science Foundation grant, with field trips in September–October and December alongside Remo and Gta’ language activists, Sora activist Opino Gomango and Mundari scholar Bikram Jora.
Paraguay. Several thousand Chamacoco (Yshyr) words were recorded, and a preliminary Chamacoco/Yshyr Talking Dictionary was made.
The Last Speakers. In September, National Geographic Books published Dr. Harrison’s book The Last Speakers: The Quest to Save the World’s Most Endangered Languages.
On YouTube. In October we launched the Enduring Voices YouTube channel, which passed 50,000 visits.
A hidden language. In October, media around the world reported on the “hidden” Koro language of Arunachal Pradesh, which we had been documenting since early 2008, with a further field trip in November 2010.
Siletz Dee-ni. The Siletz Talking Dictionary passed 6,000 words. Bud Lane said: “The Talking dictionary is and will be one of the best resources we have in our struggle to keep Siletz Athabaskan alive.”