Mondé, Puruborá, Mekens, Ayuru and Xipaya: five of Brasil’s native languages that are most at risk and all have not been sufficiently documented. But from 2006 the world will be able to count on audio and video testimonials, texts and dictionaries that a team of researchers is collecting in a three-year long research project by HRELP.
The Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Project is an initiative of SOAS, the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, financed by the Lisbet Rausing Charitable Fund.
The project which began in 2003 is developed in three specific parts: documentation (Endangered Languages Documentation Programme), for which 15 million pounds have been set aside to be used over ten years, for researchers collecting data on around one hundred endangered languages; an academic program (Endangered Languages Academic Programme) to teach linguists; and lastly a program to create a digital archive (Endangered Languages Archiving Programme).
The Endangered Languages Documentation Programme is currently supporting fifty research groups all over the world, working to record audio and video in the field, conducting interviews, and writing up grammar and dictionaries. For example a team guided by Miriam Corris from the University of Sydney, is completing a descriptive grammar of Barupu, spoken by around two thousand people in Papua New Guinea. And Dr Nilson Gabas is working to describe Karo, the mother tongue of about a hundred Arara in Brazil’s Amazon region: they are preparing a Karo-Portuguese dictionary, the publication of a book of myths and stories and video and audio that describe the activities of the Arara.
There are many stories to tell: the HRELP site lists and describes all current projects . Applications for 2006-2007 grants are currently open.
