Endangered Languages Project

The Endangered Languages Project (ELP) is a worldwide collaboration between Indigenous language organizations, linguists, institutions of higher education, and key industry partners to strengthen endangered languages. The foundation of the project is a website, which launched in June 2012. The goals of the ELP are to foster exchange of information related to at-risk languages and accelerate endangered language research and documentation, to support communities engaged in protecting or revitalizing their languages. Users of the website play an active role in putting their languages online by submitting information or samples in the form of text, audio, links or video files. Once uploaded to the website, users can tag their submissions by resource category to ensure they are easily searchable. Current resource categories include:

Languages included on the website and the information displayed about them are provided by the Catalogue of Endangered Languages (ELCat), developed by the linguistics departments at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa and Eastern Michigan University. Users are encouraged to verify and update existing ELCat information, such as statistics and background information for a language they have in-depth knowledge about by offering suggested improvements via an online form. This means that the languages included on the website and the information presented about them is intended to change over time, as the status of languages changes and information about those languages improves.

The ELP was born out of the recognition that a platform was needed for language speakers, learners and advocates to share and access relevant information and resources.

The four founding partners who oversaw the website’s development and launch include:

An active Governance Council with delegates from the USA, Canada, Australia, India, Cameroon and the Netherlands is responsible for management of the website, oversight of outreach efforts and long-term planning for the project. In addition to the governing organizations listed above, a global coalition of organizations working to strengthen and preserve endangered languages is forming through the website. This group is known as the Alliance for Linguistic Diversity.

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