Newsletter, December 2019: greetings from Greg on #GivingTuesday
Living Tongues Project facilitators Shashi Kant Lakra (left) and Anukaran Mardi (right) collaborate with Birhor community members in Sadbhaiya village, India. Photo by Dr. Bikram Jora.
Greetings from all of us at Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages!
This is a busy time of year, so I’ll keep it short. Today, I’m leaving on a field trip to India to continue working with our Living Tongues staff there, conducting language documentation work in tribal communities. We are in the middle of several large projects recording the traditional knowledge of the Birhor people, as well as training local collaborators to make films about Sora life and culture from an indigenous perspective, as well as a comprehensive documentation of Sora.
Eranti Dolbera, a Lanjia Sora speaker who resides in a village named Rapjingtal, India. She is part of a Sora cultural video documentation project led by Living Tongues scholar Opino Gomango in collaboration with Dr. Greg Anderson.
Before I go, I wanted to reach out and thank you for being part of our network and for supporting our work. We’ve had a busy year full of fieldwork trips, collaborations with speakers of endangered languages and presentations about our findings. We’ve held three events around the United States to raise awareness about our work, and we’ve presented at many international conferences including in Australia, Thailand, Japan, and France. We are continually inspired by the endangered language speakers we meet. Our goal is to stay strong in 2020 and keep doing fieldwork around the world.
From left to right: Mr. Prema Soren (Santali speaker and collaborator), Dr. Luke Horo (Living Tongues linguist and coordinator), and Dr. Greg Anderson (LT Director). Location: Erasuti village, Tezpur, Assam, India. Photo by Opino Gomango.
As you know, we live in a critical time for endangered languages, with over half of the world’s languages at risk of disappearing before 2100. We sense there is a groundswell in endangered language activism in part thanks to UNESCO’s International Year of Indigenous Languages (#IYIL2019) and all of the organizations around the world working tirelessly on this cause, and we are happy to be part of that global effort. There are a few tangible ways that you can help us continue our mission to document languages at risk of disappearing:
- Today, December 3rd is #GivingTuesday, a day of international charitable giving. This is a perfect time of year to make a difference. From buying Living Tongues merchandise or by making a one-time end-of-year donation, there are many ways to contribute right here.
- Amazon Smile. If you are shopping online this holiday season, don’t forget about us! You can generate donations and make a difference for Living Tongues Institute. Amazon Smile will donate 0.5% of the price of your eligible purchases to Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages when you shop through the Amazon Smile portal.
- Facebook is matching every donation today!
- Living Tongues Society. Many of you are already members, but if you are not, please consider becoming a member of our brand-new Society! It’s a great way to support us, receive invites to exclusive online live-streams with our researchers, and learn about our work behind the scenes. Sign up here.
Wishing you all the best this holiday season, Greg & the Living Tongues team
PS. If you have any questions about donating, please contact Morgan Mann at morgan@livingtongues.org
If you have any questions about our programs and research, please get in touch with me, or with Anna Luisa Daigneault at annaluisa@livingtongues.org.