Breath of Life (BoL) invigorates the study of endangered Native American languages by connecting heritage communities with primary source material that documents their languages, and with linguists who mentor their academic research. The Institute provides much-needed training in linguistics and in research methods in order to facilitate community-driven research and revitalization.
BoL builds durable collaborative relationships between linguists and heritage language learners. These relationships stimulate language learning, teaching and research within heritage communities, often leading to new insights based on previously under-utilized documentation. BoL trains linguists to produce documentation that is more relevant to and useful for community efforts through engagement in the process of identifying, interpreting and using archival documentation. The use of archival material exposes gaps in documentation, allowing future projects to effectively focus their efforts on filling these gaps.
BoL has a direct and immediate impact on the training of linguists, both within the academy and without, and on the use of linguistics in indigenous communities. It greatly enhances the dissemination of previously-collected materials to those most interested in it and, through them, to the larger academic domain. BoL supports ongoing and future community-based language documentation efforts by teaching Native American participants about the importance of language documentation and its relevance to ongoing cultural initiatives. For both mentors and researchers, BoL demonstrates the critical importance of archiving materials that linguists or community members have collected. Activities that highlight endangered language archives and their central role in language documentation affirm the importance of archives to their larger institutions and to the public in general.
The Breath of Life Archival Institute for Indigenous Languages will take place in Washington, D.C., in the summer of 2013. The Institute will be co-hosted by the Smithsonian Institution's National Anthropological Archives and National Museum for the American Indian, and the Library of Congress.
Breath of Life is a two-week educational Institute for Native American language activists and linguists, sponsored by the Endangered Language Fund and co-hosted by the Smithsonian Institution's National Anthropological Archives (NAA) and National Museum for the American Indian (NMAI) and the Library of Congress (LoC). The purpose of the workshop is to breathe life into the documentation of endangered languages of the Americas by connecting members of heritage communities with primary source material that documents their languages. The Breath of Life (BOL) model relies on collaboration between researchers (Native American heritage language learners) and mentors (experts in linguistics who guide the researchers' work), supplemented by lectures and workshops on linguistics and related topics. The curriculum covers an introduction to linguistics for Native language activists, an introduction to archival research, and special topics in the revitalization of Native languages, focusing on the use of archival documentation for language learning and teaching. At the 2013 Institute, 67 participants represented 17 Native American languages. Each group received training in research methods (how to find and access materials on their languages), and in the basics of linguistic analysis in order to read, pronounce, and fruitfully use the language documented in archival materials, and to understand features of the grammar of their language in order to create novel sentences and communicate in the language. Participants came away with materials and ideas that will benefit language revitalization in their home communities. Native language researchers were able to take home new skills in archival research, and new knowledge of linguistics, and language teaching and learning. Linguists learned ways to assist communities in their language revitalization efforts and how to train community members in the fundamentals of linguistics. All participants learned a great deal about reaching across the divide between academics and Native communities (where such a divide exists) to develop strong, positive, and trusting relationships. Several teams have continued their collaboration on technical and programmatic issues since the workshop. Others have parlayed their experience into successful grant applications for their tribal education initiatives.
