Conference to Advance Scientific Understanding and Broader Impacts of Indigenous Languages of the Americas: South, Central, and North

Purdue University, West Lafayette IN

Investigators

Abstract

Most indigenous languages of the Americas are severely threatened, adding urgency to the increasing the scientific and broader impacts for the documentation of these languages. The international Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas (SSILA) is among the organizations increasingly focused on effective approaches to the language sciences that advance knowledge using various methodological approaches, including, community-based. Such research paradigms emphasize meaningful, egalitarian relationships with communities whose languages are under threat. This project supports a workshop organized for the annual meeting of SSILA, and it proposes to infuse new methodologies and strategies for documenting and revitalizing American indigenous languages by bringing together academic and community language experts from Central and South America with a North American audience. The goal is to bring together these diverse perspectives and enrich the quality of language data for linguistic research, ultimately leading to new insights about relationships among languages, traditional knowledge embedded within language, and the possibilities of the human mind. Broader impacts include the potential for engagement with and advancing knowledge to the greater audience of linguists who attend this annual meeting, the availability of results through the SSILA website, and the potential benefits of approaches from other regions of the Americas that can positively impact the preservation and revitalization of Native American languages in the U.S. This workshop will provide an initial platform for communication among community members, researchers, and institutions across the Americas who engage in community-based language work. By supporting the attendance of and Central and South American researchers and indigenous community members, the workshop will promote an understanding of how community-based research is conceptualized across the Americas, what principles and constructs are used, and what can be learned from one another in order to conduct language research in a more ethical and effective manner and promote language revitalization, maintenance, and documentation. Because there are few consistent platforms for communication across the Americas, noteworthy work on community-based approaches to language documentation, and revitalization taking place elsewhere in the Americas does not always reach U.S.-based community members and researchers and Native American communities. Research agendas into acquisition of endangered languages, or the broadening of participation by training indigenous language speakers are both areas where the U.S. lags behind. Novel approaches through this knowledge exchange has the potential to enhance scientific understanding and investigation into the linguistic diversity of the Americas, broaden participation by Native Americans and Latinos in the U.S. in the language sciences, while the involvement of students has the potential to enhance the STEM workforce in an increasingly globalized context. The methodology employed will include a collective impact model, defined as a commitment by a diverse set of stakeholders to solve a specific social problem under a centralized infrastructure, to collectively tackle the challenges of unnatural language loss. The model will help establish strategies for future communication, collaborations, and dissemination of community-based approaches to language preservation, maintenance, revitalization, and documentation across the Americas. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.