"CoLang," the Institute for Collaborative Language Research, will be held at the University of Kansas in June-July, 2012. The Institute provides an opportunity for graduate students, practicing linguists, and community linguists to become trained in community-centered language documentation. Two earlier Institutes, formerly called InField, were held in 2008 at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and in 2010 at the University of Oregon. The six-week Institute consists of two parts: the WorkÂshops, which consist of two weeks of intensive workshops on the practice of documentary linguistics, followed by a Practicum, a four-week apprenticeship in the application of linguistic science and technology to on-site empirical documentation (a.k.a. "field linguistics"). The Workshops offer team-taught, state-of-the-art training in linguistic theory and discovery, technology, community language work, and applied linguistics. The Practicum allows students to implement all of these skills by working with speakers of understudied languages. Three or four language Practicums will be offered in 2012.
This summer school addresses the acute problem of language disappearance (endangerment): by many estimates, most of the world's nearly 7000 languages will be gone by the end of the century. Cultural heritage and personal identities are closely tied to language; when languages disappear, communities lose not only ways of speaking, but may also lose their histories, their arts, their stories, and even pieces of their identities. Linguists, other academics, and community members can productively collaborate to thoroughly document language use; they can also create materials to foster language maintenance as well as scholarly products, as collaborators see fit. The NEH/NSF-DEL grant supported the planning, organizing, and holding of a summer school in language documentation called CoLang: Institute for Collaborative Language Research. This was the third such institute held in even-numbered years; the first two were held also with NEH/NSF support in 2008 (at UCSB) and 2010 (at U of Oregon); those institutes were called InField. The institute fills a large gap in training programs at the intersection of language technology, language pedagogy and maintenance, and ethical collaborations between communities and academics; the successful institute will be continued in 2014 and for the foreseeable future. The project had the following outcomes: -Planned and organized the summer school (including curriculum design, instructor recruitment, and on-site arrangements, please see the website: http://idrh.ku.edu/CoLang2012). -Held the summer school (18 June - 27 July 2012) at the University of Kansas, for almost 100 people from several dozen nations. This included two weeks of Workshops in skill development, followed by a four-week Practicum to allow practice of those skills with speakers of languages. In all, nearly 80 attended the Workshops and 22, the Practicum. -Employed two graduate students (one for a year, one for a half a year). -Held a number of public outreach events for the greater (Lawrence, KS) area, including a recognition and welcome by the First Nations of the Lawrence area; daily 'Models of Collaboration' talks in June; an art exhibit at the Spencer Art Museum; and a Native dance performance. -As an example of the kind of collaborative documentary materials the CoLang Institute produces, compiled, re-annotated, published and linked materials from a 2010 Practicum in Uyghur at previous CoLang(InField). -The CoLang 2012 Practicum in Amazigh (Morocco) spawned a follow-on summer school in Morocco (under different sponsorship and directorship). -The success of the CoLang 2012 Institute, together with that of previous institutes (InField 2008 and 2010), resulted in the planning of CoLang 2014 at the University of North Texas.
