The Endangered Languages and Dictionaries Project at the University of Cambridge investigates ways of writing dictionaries that better facilitate the maintenance and revitalization of endangered languages.
One of the most important issues facing humankind today is the rate at which our languages are dying. On present trends, the next century will see more than half of the world's 6800 languages become extinct, and most of these will disappear without being adequately recorded. An important first step in slowing down or reversing this process is to document the language in the form of a dictionary. By using innovative lexicographic policies, practices, and technologies, we are able to produce dictionaries that are useful to both communities and scholars.
The Endangered Languages and Dictionaries Project is developing a methodology for writing dictionaries that are more community-focussed and collaborative in their making, content, and format. It explores the relationship between documenting a language and sustaining it, and entails collaboration with linguists, dictionary-makers and educators, as well as members of the endangered-language communities themselves, in order to determine what lexicographic methodologies work particularly well pedagogically for language maintenance and revitalization.
How to Participate
If you are writing or have written a dictionary please participate in this Dictionary Survey. The Survey consists of ten questions and will result in an online catalogue of dictionary projects around the world. For more information or to be involved in the project please contact Dr Sarah Ogilvie or visit her website.
