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Documentation and description of DulongMr Ross Perlin, SOAS Project Details: Individual Graduate Studentship. Duration: 2008-2010. £32,305 Project Summary: Dulong is a Tibeto-Burman language variety spoken in Gongshan Nu and Dulong Autonomous County, Yunnan Province, China, in villages alongside the Nu and Dulong rivers. With under 10,000 speakers, the language is vulnerable to the encroachment of Lisu and Southwest Mandarin Chinese. While the language is still in full use by the community, this project aims to make a comprehensive multimedia documentation that serve as a basis for language maintenance efforts and provide data previously unavailable to scholars and others interested in the language.

Documentation and Comparative Study of two Endangered Languages in Tibet: Wutunhua, DaohuaDr Yeshes Vodgsal Acuo, University of Nankai

Why try to preserve endangered languages? Wouldn't the world be simpler if there were fewer languages? Why care if languages die out? The truth is that a people's identity and culture are intimately tied to their language. Each language is unique. No one knows what riches may be hidden within an endangered language. We may never learn about the cultures whose languages have disappeared. And the wholesale loss of languages that we face today will greatly restrict how much we can learn about human culture, human cognition and the nature of language.   'ōlelo Hawai'i     Gaeilge Success Stories Language preservation is difficult, but there are some success stories. Some languages are literally coming back from the dead. Below are just a few of them. Hawaiian Hawaiian had become nearly extinct when the U.S. banned schools from teaching students in Hawaiian after annexing Hawai'i in 1898. Today, close to 10,000 Hawaiians speak their native tongue as compared to under 1,000 in 1983. This remarkable resurgence is supported in part by the use of technology. Hebrew Hebrew evolved in the past century from a written language with no native speakers into Israel's national tongue, spoken by 5 million people. Irish Gaelic The Irish have succeeded in preserving their native Gaelic to the point where it is now spoken by 13% of the population of the Republic of Ireland. Resources The International clearinghouse for endangered languages Foundation for endangered languages Bibliography on language endangerment and language revitalization UNESCO Red Book on endangered languages: Europe Wikipedia article on endangered language SIL endangered languages Bibliography of materials on endangered languages Language revival Technology for endangered languages in Australia OLAC: Open Language Archives Community Online resources for endangered languages (OREL)