Linked with Joênia Batista de Carvalho – Brazil, and with Manifesto for Endangered Languages.
The Foundation for Endangered Languages supports, enables and assists the documentation, protection and promotion of endangered languages. This website announces our varied activities, and includes our newsletter Ogmios and details of our conferences. (Homepage).
Membership details; Proceedings; Grant Applications;
Appeals and News from Endangered Communities;
Call for Papers – FEL XIII: Endangered Languages and History;
Bibliography; Newsletters; Links;
Contact: For general enquiries contact Nicholas Ostler.
Manifesto: … 1.3. The Need for an Organization (scroll down):
- We cannot stem the global forces which are at the root of language decline and loss.
- But we can work to lessen the ignorance which sees language loss as inevitable when it is not, and does not properly value all that will go when a language itself vanishes.
- We can work to see technological developments, such as computing and telecommunications, used to support small communities and their traditions rather than to supplant them.
- And we can work to lessen the damage: o by recording as much as possible of the languages of communities which seem to be in terminal decline; o by emphasizing particular benefits of the diversity still remaining; and o by promoting literacy and language maintenance programmes, to increase the strength and morale of the users of languages in danger.
In order to further these aims, there is a need for an autonomous international organization which is not constrained or influenced by matters of race, politics, gender or religion. This organization will recognise in language issues the principles of self-determination, and group and individual rights. It will pay due regard to economic, social, cultural, community and humanitarian considerations. Although it may work with any international, regional or local Authority, it will retain its independence throughout. Membership will be open to those in all walks of life.
2. Aims and Objectives: The Foundation for Endangered Languages exists to support, enable and assist the documentation, protection and promotion of endangered languages.
In order to do this, it aims:
- To raise awareness of endangered languages, both inside and outside the communities where they are spoken, through all channels and media;
- To support the use of endangered languages in all contexts: at home, in education, in the media, and in social, cultural and economic life;
- To monitor linguistic policies and practices, and to seek to influence the appropriate authorities where necessary;
- To support the documentation of endangered languages, by offering financial assistance, training, or facilities for the publication of results;
- To collect together and make available information of use in the preservation of endangered languages;
- To disseminate information on all of the above activities as widely as possible.