Cambridge Endangered Languages Cultures

“Language ecology as the new frontier of language planning: exploring the relationship between endangered languages and their socio-cultural habitat”

This academic year, the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages and the Departments of Middle Eastern Studies, Anthropology and Sociology have been involved in an exciting cross-disciplinary initiative to bring together Cambridge scholars from different backgrounds who work on issues related to language and culture endangerment. Despite the number of academics and postgraduates working in this field, the University of Cambridge has not had a comprehensive forum where researchers could exchange ideas and disseminate findings – until now. CELC will perform this function.

The group will host a series of fortnightly seminars and The Second Cambridge Conference on Endangered Languages (6 July 2012). The events will bring together eminent scholars from institutions across the world with the aim of providing an academic platform for the study of language endangerment in Cambridge and forging connections with other renowned research centres in the field.

The group firmly believes in the importance of documenting and preserving languages and cultures threatened by extinction. Our main focus and concern will be the theoretical analysis of endangered contexts, alongside attempting to understand the mechanisms underlying language loss and, ultimately, how to reverse them. Today, about 6,500 languages are spoken worldwide, most of which are near extinct. Since languages are of vital importance for the transmission of living heritage their loss, in terms of cultural diversity, would be extensive. CELC will, therefore, aim to promote the revitalisation of endangered languages and cultures, and to raise general awareness of these issues by sharing information and knowledge across the widest possible academic network.