last modified:2008-12-03 15:19:04
About the Center
Goals & Objectives
- Working with community members where languages and cultures are endangered, towards linguistic and cultural revitalization
- Urgent and ambitious work to document the endangered languages of Native America (where documentation means adequate grammar, dictionary, and abundant texts to represent the language in its many uses)
- Training students to address scholarly and practical needs involving these languages and their communities of speakers (and those whose heritage languages are involved)
The Center welcomes affiliations with other language documentation and revitalization projects, visiting scholars, students, and representatives of American Indian groups.
Graduate student applications are invited for either the University of Utah’s PhD program in Linguistics or for the “Certificate in Revitalization of Endangered Languages and Cultures” (CRELC).
CAIL Location
CAIL is housed in a historic red sandstone building (c. 1875) in Fort Douglas, at the edge of the University of Utah campus, with the beautiful Wasatch Mountains directly behind. It has a reference library and reading room (extensive collection of books and materials on Native American languages, on language endangerment, and language revitalization), a computer laboratory, archives, and a conference room and classrooms. The Center's three floors accommodate on-going projects, visiting scholars, postdoctoral fellows, and students.
CAIL Board of Advisors
Willem F. H. Adelaar, Professor of Native American Languages and Cultures at Leiden University, Netherlands (wadelaar@xs4all.nl)
Forrest S. Cuch, Executive Director, Division of Indian Affairs (State of Utah) (Ute) (fscuch@utah.gov, www.dced.utah.gov/indian)
Wade Davis, Explorer-in-Residence, National Geographic Society (Daviswade@aol.com)
Ives Goddard, Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, senior linguist (emeritus) (goddardi@si.edu)
Verónica Grondona, Eastern Michigan University, Professor of linguistics, specialist in South American Indian languages (grondona@linguistlist.org)
Dr. William Merrill, Smithsonian Institution, Head of Ethnology Division, Department of Anthropology (william.merrill@att.net)
Victor Montejo, University of California, Davis, Professor of Native American Studies, author (Jakaltek Maya), former Secretario de la Paz in Guatemalan government (vmontejo@ucdavis.edu)
Keren Rice, University of Toronto, Professor of Linguistics, editor International Journal of American Linguistics (rice@chass.utoronto.ca)
Roberto Zavala Professor and Researcher at CIESAS-Sureste (San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico), associate director of Project for the Documentation of Languages of Mesoamerica (rzavmal1@hotmail.com)