Safeguarding Our Threatened Linguistic Heritage
About 7,000 languages are spoken worldwide today, but many of these are expected to slip into disuse during this century as small groups find themselves overwhelmed by their more numerous and culturally dominant neighbors. Anthropology PhD candidate Stephanie Hasselbacher is now working in the forefront of efforts to document and preserve one of these endangered languages.
Stephanie has just received a nearly $44,000.00 grant from the Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Project, funded by Arcadia and housed at the School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London, UK). Hasselbacher will use the grant, as well as training and other support from the Endangered Languages Documentation Programme and the Endangered Languages Archive, to help document the Koasati language spoken by the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana. Dr. Jack Martin, of the English department here at the College, and who has worked with the Coushatta for many years, was instrumental in introducing Stephanie to the tribe and its threatened linguistic heritage.
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