During their 2019 annual meetings, the Linguistic Society of America and the Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas (SSILA) celebrated the start of the UN's International Year of Indigenous Languages (IYIL2019) with a kick-off event on Thursday, January 3rd. The event's organizers were Keren Rice (SSILA President), Shannon Bischoff (SSILA Program Chair), Jorge Emilio Rosés Labrada (CELP 2019 chair), and Michal Temkin Martinez (CELP 2018 chair).

The joint event featured brief remarks about the UN's proclamation for IYIL2019 by Mr. Diego Tituaña, Second Secretary of the Permanent Mission of Ecuador to the United Nations,  one of the original authors of the proclamation. Following the remarks, audience members were invited to speak with four featured groups working on Indigenous languages and language-related issues:

1. Representatives from Natives4Linguistics:

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 Hawaiʻi 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)

2. The organizers of the workshop on Community-Based Language Research Across the Americas:

Shannon Bischoff (Purdue University Fort Wayne)

Melvatha Chee (University of Alberta)

Tania Granadillo (University of Western Ontario)

Kate Riestenberg (Bryn Mawr College)

3. Members of the Endangered Language Alliance:

Daniel Kaufman - ELA

Husniya Khujamyorova - ELA

Irwin Sanchez - Tlaxcal Kitchen / ELA

Jackie Alvarez - Hunter College

Alexis Paz - ELA

Leobardo Ajtzalam - ELA

Zenaida Cantú - ELA

José Juarez - Lo profundo de Mexico / ELA

Kainoa Embernate - Hālau ʻŌlelo

Charlie Uruchima - NYCOSH

4. Representatives from Google's Language Technologies team:

Pierric Sans (Automatic Speech Recognition, Google, LLC)

Hakim Sidahmed (Research and Machine Intelligence, Google, LLC)

Maya Wax Cavallaro (Pygmalion, Adecco @ Google)

 

Click here to download slides from the overview presentation.

Click here to see a video clip of Diego Tituaña's remarks on the UN's Proclamation for IYIL2019.