For the past 12 years, the Endangered Languages Project has been a trusted place to share digital resources to support Indigenous and endangered languages. People around the world have chosen to share information about their languages, cultures, and work through ELP, trusting that we will engage with their materials appropriately, respectfully, and transparently. 

Our relationships with language champions, community organizations, scholars, and allies are the core of our work. The trust our community places in us is at the heart of what we do. 

We are deeply committed to Indigenous data sovereignty, and to the rights of Indigenous and minoritized communities to decide whether, when, and how they will engage with language technologies.

That is why we have been deeply concerned, in recent months, to see false information circulating about ELP’s involvement in AI projects. Several posts and articles, all of which seemed to be AI-generated, have falsely claimed that ELP is developing large language models (LLMs) or other AI tools, using the language materials shared on our site.

Using the language materials shared on ELP’s site to train LLMs would be profoundly unethical, and a gross violation of our values and relationships. We want to clarify ELP’s use, or non-use, of AI tools in general, and contextualize these decisions within our organizational values.
 

• First and foremost, we do not engage in language data mining using LLMs or other AI tools. We do not permit materials hosted on the ELP site to be used in the training of LLMs or other AI models.

• We work with human writers and editors - we don’t use ChatGPT or other generative AI tools to create our learning resources, social media content, articles or blog posts. We invest significant collective time, thought, and emotion in writing the text you find on the ELP website, social media accounts, and learning materials. We value foregrounding a variety of human voices, writing styles, knowledges, and creative visions. Working together with human writers and editors creates possibilities for one of our core values of relationship-building. 

• We work with human artists - we don’t use generative AI image or music/sound generation tools for our materials. We do not knowingly publish AI-generated images. We value experiencing and sharing a variety of human art styles, perspectives, artistic traditions, and creative visions.

• We work with human translators and interpreters - we don’t rely on machine translation tools without human supervision. We sometimes use transcription tools for materials in dominant languages, or use machine translation tools to quickly check the meaning of a piece of text, but always check any machine translations with a human. We value and respect the human knowledge of context, tone, style, and cultural nuance that goes into translation work.

• We work with human content creators - we aim to support and uplift creators who put time, effort, and creativity into conducting interviews, recording audio and video materials, creating social media posts, etc. We value elevating the perspectives and talents of humans around the world, and creating space for people to learn from one another.

• We work with human researchers - the information in ELP’s Catalogue of Endangered Languages has been painstakingly collected, organized, and reviewed by a team of human researchers over many years. In all of our research work, we do not use ChatGPT or other LLMs. We do our own thinking, reading, editing, and writing.

 
We suggest that anyone interested in the development of AI technologies for language revitalization, in alignment with the values of Indigenous data sovereignty, may wish to learn more about the work of organizations like Indigenous AI, Te Hiku Media, First Languages AI Reality (FLAIR), Te Mana Raraunga, Maiam nayri Wingara, Masakhane, the Global Indigenous Data Alliance, and others.

As the technologies described broadly as “AI” continue to grow and change, and more ethical tools are developed, our use of AI tools may change. However, any choices we make about AI will remain informed by our organizational values: integrity, respect, support, optimism, collaboration, relationship, sharing and accessibility, and informed action. And, in keeping with our values, we will continue to communicate transparently about our decisions and actions regarding AI tools.

We hope this statement clarifies how ELP engages with AI, and we welcome any questions or comments you might have: feedback@endangeredlanguages.com

We are happy to share a newly translated resource from the Endangered Languages Project and the First Peoples' Cultural Council: an Igbo translation of Culture Camps for Language Learning: An Immersion Handbook. 

Language and culture immersion camps are a highly successful tool for language revitalization - there are examples of community language camps all over the world. They usually combine land-based learning with traditional activities, games, and the building of community relationships, all within a language immersion setting. 

This handbook is intended to be a practical tool for camp organizers, staff, Elders, community members, teachers and anyone else involved in language and culture immersion camps. It includes key points and details for each step of the entire process of planning and carrying out a language and culture immersion camp.  

Language camps can be organized and tailored to communities' specific needs, often without much funding, and with full community control over the process. This makes language camps a very appealing and feasible language revitalization activity in many areas of the world. Igbo is one of the largest languages in Nigeria, and this handbook will offer useful guidance to not only Igbo communities, but smaller language communities who are multilingual in Igbo.

This handbook was originally developed by the First Peoples' Cultural Council in British Columbia, Canada, for First Nations communities. This version has been fully translated into Igbo, as well as localized with images, activities, and suggestions relevant in Igbo-speaking contexts. It was translated and adapted for Igbo-speaking communities by ELP volunteer Onyinye Favour Chibueze, and designed and illustrated by Chinedu Daniel Okeke. 

We hope this handbook will be useful for language revitalization work in Nigeria and beyond.  

You can download the handbook by clicking on the thumbnail below:

📢 Are language camps being held in your community? Did you find this handbook useful in your language revitalization efforts? We would love to learn more about your work! Please reach out to us at feedback@endangeredlanguages.com and share your story.

We're hiring! Applications for ELP's fall 2024-spring 2025 internships are now open. 

If you are passionate about supporting language revitalization, great at gathering and sharing knowledge and stories, skilled at organizing and supporting volunteers, and/or a tech-savvy digital resource manager, we'd love to hear from you!⁠

ELP is seeking 3 interns for the 2024–2025 academic year (September 2024–March 2025). Interns will contribute to developing our web community and online resource library, growing and managing ELP’s volunteer program,
gathering and sharing stories about language work, and more.

We’re a small organization committed to mobilizing capacity for Indigenous and endangered language communities to achieve their language goals, making knowledge about language work accessible to those who need it, and fostering relationships between people working to support language diversity.

These are part-time (10 hours/week), paid contract positions. The internship duration is from September 2024 through March 2025, with a break in the December-January holiday period. ELP is a fully remote organization; applicants located anywhere in the world are eligible and encouraged to apply.

Learn more about the positions and apply by August 8 at https://bit.ly/ELPinterns2024 ! ⁠

In February and March 2024, ELP hosted the first annual Ready to Revitalize, an 8-week online course in project planning for language revitalization. It was an honor to gather with some truly dedicated language champions from around the world, share knowledge, and build skills and connections to support their language work. 

Ready to Revitalize grew out of the annual Language Documentation Webinars which ELP has been hosting, in partnership with the Language Documentation Training Center, since 2019. These 8-week webinar series share introductory skills in language documentation with hundreds of learners around the world, and each year, they conclude with one session on language revitalization. This session is always extremely popular, and each year, participants have requested more learning opportunities in language revitalization. 

So, in 2023, the ELP staff began designing a separate 8-week course in language revitalization, with the same goals as the documentation webinars: to share practical, usable knowledge in support of language work. We wanted the course to be open to anyone in the world, with no prior experience or knowledge required - everyone from absolute beginners to experienced community revitalization practitioners was invited to apply. The weekly topics included:
 

• Week 1 : Introduction and Getting to Know Each Other
• Week 2: Language Planning, Strategy, and Visioning
• Week 3: Language Revitalization Methods
• Week 4: Collaborative Work and Partnerships
• Week 5: Funding, Human Resources & Material Resources
• Week 6: Language and Place
• Week 7: Language and Technology
• Week 8: Participant Presentations

When we announced Ready to Revitalize, we were overwhelmed by the interest in the course. We designed the program for 20 people, to ensure it was a small enough group that everyone could comfortably participate and get to know each other. We expected a few dozen applications at most - instead, more than 400 people applied to participate in the course. It was very difficult to choose among the hundreds of wonderful language champions who applied, but in the end, we invited a cohort of 20 people from 18 countries, with a wide variety of interests, skills, and experiences. We chose participants according to a few general criteria. We wanted this course to be available to people who had limited or no access to other learning opportunities in language revitalization; who had a clear idea or goal for language revitalization work in their communities; and whose situations were particularly urgent for revitalization work (such as a severe language endangerment situation, or a context of political or social oppression). But they all had one thing in common: a deep commitment to uplifting their languages and communities, and a desire to grow their skills in language revitalization. 

“I have been in this language [revitalization] program for a long time in isolation. My voice was not loud enough to be heard from a distance. With ELP I think they heard my voice.” -Gibrilla Kamara, Mani, Sierra Leone

For 8 weeks, participants met weekly on Zoom to learn, share their experiences, and build connections with each other. A key part of the course was building relationships among everyone in Ready to Revitalize. Every week, participants spent time in small group discussions, sharing their own experiences and perspectives across borders, and finding inspiration and support from their peers. This sense of community and solidarity is at the heart of ELP’s work, and we are overjoyed to have been able to create a safe and meaningful space for language champions to learn from each other. 

“It's been super to see such amazing teamwork among all of the ELP staff, and to meet others working actively and passionately. Knowing this is a worldwide movement is one thing, but starting to feel part of an international community is another.” -Jo-Anne Ferreira, Trinidadian French Creole, Trinidad and Tobago

But beyond sharing usable knowledge and building connections, Ready to Revitalize also provided participants with firsthand experience in envisioning, planning, and carrying out a revitalization project - and hands-on practice in writing grant proposals. From the first week, participants began devising a concrete project plan, thinking about questions like “what does my community need to move forward in language work right now?”, and “what realistic paths might bring my language community closer to our goals?” From there, they drafted more detailed project proposals, created estimated budgets, and thought through the ethical dimensions of the work they would undertake. By the end of the course, participants had created a fully fleshed out revitalization project plan, and written a grant proposal to submit to ELP. 

“I learned how to verbalize a plan of action, discuss, and listen. It gave me a sense of confidence in going forward and also an excuse to get started!” -Megan Gourd, Northern Paiute - Gidutikad Band, USA

We are very happy that this year, we were able to offer mini-grants to Ready to Revitalize participants, to support the revitalization projects they so carefully developed over the past two months. In the coming months, we will share about some of these projects*, and highlight the incredibly creative, innovative, and inspiring ways that course participants are working to revitalize their languages.

“Understanding that I can work with other people interested in revitalizing my language but most important, that our effort can spread beyond our local place, this is the most important thing I learned. Thank you.” -René Oswaldo González Pizarro, Ayuuk, Mexico

We offer our sincere thanks to our partners at the First Peoples’ Cultural Council for making it possible to offer funding for these small projects. Most of all, we want to thank the participants for sharing their time, their experiences, their knowledge, and their aspirations during this course. The ELP team learned a great deal from offering this course for the first time. Thanks to our experiences, and the insights and feedback shared by participants, we are looking forward to hosting an even better Ready to Revitalize at the beginning of 2025. 

It was a privilege and a joy to share this space with such amazing language champions, and we cannot express this more beautifully than one of the course participants did:

“The format used is more like learning circles, which we in the Pacific Islands refer to as ‘storying corners’, but I would rather use the analogy of ‘traffic junction’ or ‘intersection’ conversations. We are passing through a traffic congestion and happen to meet in the intersection waiting for the traffic to clear so we can pass through. While we are waiting, we engage in a dialogue on language revitalization, and this brief temporal space becomes a useful insightful juncture in our busy schedule about our own projects. Life is a journey that often takes us to paths where we cross with other people, and this is one of them - where the virtual space has been a brief interlude to reflect, learn and impact ideas where possible, with others we are most fortunate to meet. It was a very sacred temporal virtual space of learning for me because of respect and open dialogue.” -Course participant*, Papua New Guinea

*Not all places in the world are safe or welcoming for language revitalization work. It is of paramount importance for us to protect the safety and privacy of participants, so some projects and names will not be shared publicly.