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(1) Since the 15th International Congress of Linguists in August 1992 at Laval University, Quebec, Canada CIPL has been taking great interest in the highly topical world-wide problem of language endangerment. During the Congress mentioned the General Assembly of CIPL approved the following resolution: "As the disappearance of any-one language constitutes an irretrievable loss to mankind, it is for UNESCO a task of great urgency to respond to this situation by promoting and, if possible, sponsoring programs of linguistic organizations for the description - in the form of grammars, dictionaries, and texts including the recording of the oral literatures - of hitherto unstudied or inadequately documented endangered and dying languages". (2) In 1993 CIPL sponsored the study of the following endangered languages of Papua New Guinea, Siberia and China: (a) Raepa tate: dying language of uncertain affiliation. Southern Papua New Guinea. Started by W. Tomasetti; continued by John Clifton, linguist with long New Guinea experience. Project concluded in December 1993. CIPL assistance US$ 5.000. (b) Musom: dying Austronesian language, highly aberrant. Northeast Papua New Guinea. Largely concluded. CIPL assistance US$ 500. (c) Koita: Papuan language spoken by the Koita people. Post Moresbly, area Papua New Guinea. Lived in symbiosis with the Austronesian Motu people for centuries. Getting now swamped by them, with their unique language and culture rapidly disappearing. T. Dutton, Department of Linguistics, School of Pacific Studies, ANU, Canberra, Australia. Funding sought independently from CIPL US$ 5,000. (d) Udehe: dying Tungus language, lower Amur River, East Siberia, started by L.V. Belikov, Russian Academy of Sciences. Funding largely concluded except for a further $ 500 - 1,000 assistance form CIPL. (e) Eynu and Hezhou: two mixed languages in China. Started by S. Wurm, Camberra, Australia. Funded. CIPL assistance in 1994: US$ 500 - 1,000 The results of this work have been published in Canberra in the large serial publication Pacific Linguistics (in its subseries D, as No 89). (3) In 1996, UNESCO and CIPL sponsored the production of an Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger of Disappearing under the editorship of S. Wurm. This was a small Atlas giving sample selections of the location and status of EL's in a number of areas in the world (Europe, Siberia, NE China, Southeast Asia, Australia, Africa, Arctic America + Greenland, the West Coast of Canada, and Central and South America), on 12 colored maps. The text, of a general nature intelligible to lay persons, was produced by S. Wurm, and there was an English, French, and a Spanish edition. The purpose of this atlas was to be a piece of publicity to stimulate world-wide interest in the problem of language endangerment. (4) At the end of 2000, CIPL received financial support from UNESCO for five studies on seriously endangered languages. In return CIPL (in close cooperation with various linguistic experts) will organize and coordinate the work on survey and study of some seriously endangered languages of the world. This work will include fieldwork, collecting and recording appropriate language material and documentation, linguistic research and other activities. 1. One representative, hitherto unstudied, language of Eastern Santo island (Vanuatu, Southwestern Pacific); 2. The dying Southern Selkup language (Siberia, Russian Federation); 3. The Wanyi Australian Aboriginal language, long believed extinct but presently requiring urgent documentation (Australia); 4. Austronesian indigenous languages of East Timor (Indonesia); 5. The Lisu language as expressed in its traditional proverbs, hitherto unstudied (Thailand). (5) The project Atlas of languages in danger in South America has, at the behest of CIPL, been extended to include Central America and Mexico
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