International Year of Indigenous Languages Kick-off Event

Thursday, January 3rd 2019
8:30pm - 10:00pm

New York Ballroom East, Sheraton New York Times Square

Organizers:    Shannon Bischoff (Purdue University, Fort Wayne)

           Keren Rice (University of Toronto)       

           Jorge Emilio Rosés Labrada (University of Alberta)

           Michal Temkin Martínez (Boise State University)

The United Nations has declared 2019 as the International Year of Indigenous Languages (IYIL). The Committee on Endangered Languages and their Preservation (CELP) of the LSA and the Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of of the Americas (SSILA) have planned a year-long celebration in honor of the UN’s declaration. The kick-off celebration will feature introductory remarks by the planning committee and the Endangered Language Alliance followed by poster presentations highlighting different projects whose focus is Indigenous languages:

Natives4Linguistics: Sharing our Findings

At the 2018 Linguistic Society of America, a group of Native American language scholars and non-Indigenous linguists came together for a satellite workshop to identify, discuss, and promote Native American needs and views of language as ways of doing linguistic science and guiding the associated academic field. A group of participants from this 2018 "Natives4Linguistics" workshop will share perspectives from the workshop and from their experiences in Indigenizing Linguistics.

Selected participants:

Kathryn Pewenofkit Briner (Kiowa Comanche, and Apache Tribe of Oklahoma; Florida Atlantic University), Kari A. B. Chew (Chickasaw Nation; University of Victoria), Leanna Dawn (Oglala Lakota & Mescalero Apache; Northeastern University), Ray Huaute (Cahuilla and Chumash; University of California, San Diego), Josh Holden (University nuhelot’įne thaiyots’į nistameyimâkanak Blue Quills), Kelsea Hosoda (Native Hawaiian; University of Hawaii at Mānoa), Wesley Y. Leonard (Miami Tribe of Oklahoma; University of California, Riverside), Megan Lukaniec (Huron-Wendat Nation; University of Victoria), Mizuki Miyashita (University of Montana), Christina Newhall (Native Village of Unga; University of Arizona), Toni Tsatoke-Mule-Kiowa; University of Oklahoma), Adrienne Tsikewa (Zuni Pueblo; University of California, Santa Barbara), X̱'unei Lance Twitchell (Tlingit, Haida, Yup’ik, Sami; University of Alaska Southeast), Quirina Geary (Amah Mutsun Tribal Band; University of California, Davis)

Community-based Language Research Across the Americas

The workshop on Community-based Language Research Across the Americas (CBLRAA) is a multilingual workshop (Spanish, Portuguese, English) that will bring together community members and researchers who engage in community-based language work in any region of the Americas. Through presentations by invited speakers and semi-structured small group discussions, the workshop will address differences and similarities among the community-based approaches being applied, ethical and practical issues that arise, what we can learn from one another, and how we can maintain channels of communication and collaboration in the future.

Workshop organizers: Shannon Bischoff (Purdue University Fort Wayne), Melvatha Chee (University of Alberta), Tania Granadillo (University of Western Ontario), Kate Riestenberg (Bryn Mawr College)

Endangered Language Alliance

Endangered Language Alliance (ELA) is a NYC-based non-profit organization that works with indigenous and immigrant communities on documenting and promoting their languages.

Co-directors: Daniel Kaufman (Queens College, CUNY) and Ross Perlin (ELA). Board members: Juliette Blevins (CUNY Graduate Center), Bob Holman (Bowery Poetry), Charles Häberl (Rutgers University), Habib Borjian (Columbia University), Nyasha Laing (International Center for Transitional Justice) and Paul Collins (Akerman). Lead collaborator: Husniya Khujamyorova

Google

Google products such as Search, the Google Assistant, Translate, Gboard and others typically offer support for many languages. Our poster will feature a high-level overview of how we approach building language technology for languages across the world, together with some in-depth case studies.

Presenters: Pierric Sans (Automatic Speech Recognition, Google, LLC), Hakim Sidahmed (Research and Machine Intelligence, Google, LLC), Maya Wax Cavallaro (Pygmalion, Adecco @ Google)

To learn more about the LSA & SSILA’s initiatives and events during the International Year of Indigenous Languages, visit our web page regularly: https://tinyurl.com/IYIL2019-LSA-SSILA