Language Revitalization

Peck featured in California Magazine

January 18, 2023

Julia Peck was featured in an article on Ladino language revitalization in California Magazine, a publication of the Cal Alumni Association. Check it out here!

DE-ILR welcome event and application

October 3, 2022

You are invited to a welcome party and information session for the Designated Emphasis in Indigenous Language Revitalization, taking place on Wednesday, October 12, from 4-5pm in Dwinelle 370. For more information, including about the 2022 deadline to apply for the DE, see this flyer.

Siouan Languages Working Group (SLWG)

When? Saturdays 10:00AM-11:30AM (Pacific time)

Where? Spring 2022 via Zoom

What? We are a cross-institutional working group dedicated to the exploration of the cultures and linguistic complexities of the Siouan languages, such as Crow, Hidatsa, Quapaw, Lakota, and Tutelo-Saponi. We focus on anthropological and linguistic literature (generally one reading per week), and we give particular emphasis to comparative and diachronic analyses of Siouan grammar. We also serve as a workshop space to assist with new analyses of languages in the...

New edition of Hinton's Flutes of Fire

August 15, 2022

Congratulations to Leanne Hinton on the publication of Flutes of Fire: An Introduction to Native California Languages, Revised and Updated! This is a newly expanded edition of her 1994 book -- "an approachable, entertaining, and informative classic on Native culture-keeping." Read all about it here!

Bleaman receives NSF CAREER Award

August 16, 2022

Congratulations to Isaac Bleaman, who has received a 5-year CAREER grant from the National Science Foundation! His project is entitled "Documenting and Analyzing Sociolinguistic Variation in the Speech of Holocaust Survivors," and it will involve developing a large corpus of conversational Yiddish for language research and community engagement. The project was described in a recent announcement to LSA members and publicized in the Forward (first in Yiddish and then in English translation).

FForum 2020-2021

Fall 2020 Schedule 2020.09.02 Welcome back!

Join us via Zoom for the first FForum meeting of the semester, where we will catch up on summer developments. All are welcome!

2020.09.09 Christine Beier and Lev Michael (UC Berkeley)

Mobile tonal melodies in Iquito: analysis, elicitation, and texts

This talk focuses on the analysis of mobile tonal melodies in Iquito and methodological issues that we faced in developing this analysis. Iquito mobile melodies are tonal melodies whose position is affected by the presence of...

DE-ILR mini grant recipients

December 16, 2021

The Designated Emphasis in Indigenous Language Revitalization has awarded $250 mini grants for language revitalization materials to three outstanding projects. The awards will go to: Nate Gong, Education, for textiles and art supplies by Pacific Islander youth involved in language and cultural revitalization through the Oakland-based organization, IKUNA; Pa Vue, Education, for a two-year subscription to Canva for the development of multimodal materials in Hmong to be disseminated through Instagram; and Katherine Russell, Linguistics, for 20 sets of 50 picture cards and 15 20-page picture story books in Guébie, a spoken language of Côte d'Ivoire that currently does not have a standard orthography.

The mini-grants are awarded twice a year to support the cost of producing language revitalization materials. The next cycle will be in the spring.

New DE-ILR cohort

December 16, 2021

The Designated Emphasis in Indigenous Language Revitalization is delighted to announce its new cohort, representing five departments and multiple languages. The DE has now grown to a community of 13 graduate student scholars and three recent graduates from nine departments, and is supported by core faculty Line Mikkelsen, Patricia Baquedano-Lopez, Chris Beier, Leanne Hinton, Andrew Garrett, Lev Michael, and Beth Piatote. Belén Flores provides critical staff support.

The new cohort includes Lisett Bastidas, History, who extends her previous work with Breath of Life to support California Indigenous languages; Jesus Nazario, Ethnic Studies, who focuses on his heritage language of Nahuatl, which will support his dissertation work on two Nahua communities in Mexico and Texas; Tzintia Montaño-Ramirez, Linguistics, who is working in her Mixtec heritage language of Dà’àn Davi of Mexico; Pa Vue, Education, whose work centers on her heritage language of Hmong and Hmong communities in the United States; and Alan Waxman, Landscape Architecture, whose work in land stewardship is shaped by his study of Ichishkiin/Yakama of the Pacific Northwest.

Karuk

Andrew Garrett, Susan Gehr, Erik Hans Maier, Line Mikkelsen Crystal Richardson, and Clare Sandy
2021