What are good charities that preserve American languages?

September 12, 2016 8:23 PM

I am a white American from Michigan; I would like to donate money to support efforts to preserve native languages. I'm interested in pretty much any language preservation cause.

I'm particularly focused on causes close to home, so I'd really like to know about groups working to preserve local language varieties, which I guess would largely be local Algonquian languages. I'm more broadly interested in any kind of effort to preserve local or regional languages, though, and particularly anything else in the Americas. I know that there are active research efforts to record and transmit languages and I would really like to contribute to the cause. Mainly, I just want to know that money I give is being spent wisely.

posted by mister pointy to Writing & Language (8 answers total)

This is not quite on the nose, but may be of interest: Aaron Carapella's Tribal Nations Maps record "the traditional names that Tribal Nations call themselves, in their own languages, with common tribal names as well", and he currently has a GoFundMe to place one of his maps in every high school in Virginia.
posted by ITheCosmos at 8:38 PM on September 12, 2016

Best answer: The Indigenous Language Institute or Native Languages of the Americas (Minnesota-based) might be good places to start. There are a lot of teachers and researchers listed in this article as well: Passion for preserving language, culture stir Native American groups.
posted by mogget at 9:05 PM on September 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

I'm in grad school for linguistics. I know people who do research work on Algonquin languages. I'll see if I can ask them where they get their funding from.
posted by mekily at 9:08 PM on September 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

One thing you can do is approach the national linguistics professional body (in the USA it's the Linguistic Society of America) and ask about offering a small prize or grant to projects that support endangered language documentation in the USA. Our national linguistics body here in Australia administers a couple of those sorts of things - funded by private donations: one is only a couple of hundred dollars a year, and one is several thousand - and the donor gets to read the applications and decide what project to support. I'm sure the LSA would be open to a similar arrangement.
posted by lollusc at 9:41 PM on September 12, 2016

Best answer: I say this gently, as a former indigenous language researcher and field linguist: 'Preservation' is a narrow-minded goal which can sometimes fetishize the intellectual value of a language over the well-being of the community that speaks that language.

In my opinion, the best way to support indigenous language revitalization is to directly support indigenous communities. This should be regardless of whether or not they still speak their ancestral language. There are a lot of complex contributing factors that lead to language loss, and serious, prolonged, systemic community and cultural disenfranchisement is super-high on that list. So, preferring to support a community that has (miraculously and/or through incredible dedication) managed to retain its language over another community that got boned by the relentless march of colonialization is not a decision I would personally make.

With respect to 'general solidarity for indigenous causes,' you can make a very timely impact by contributing to the effort to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline. The Standing Rock Sioux have set up a donation page here.

If you strongly prefer to donate to a language-specific cause, I second both organizations that mogget linked to, with some preference toward Native Languages of the Americas. I saw the site used a ton as an educational resource for lessons while I was on rez volunteering in a bilingual K-8 classroom.
posted by zeee at 9:43 PM on September 12, 2016 [12 favorites]

Best answer: If you're interested in preservation, I would focus less on linguistic institutes and studies and more on schools in first nation populations. Fund instruction in first nations languages, either in communities that have many first nations students or communities that are more diverse but offer instruction nonetheless. Ontario's curriculum includes instruction in several first nation languages. For some reason this is listed separately from all the other heritage languages offered, so presumably it is a separately funded program?

Here is a report by the Association of First Nations on instruction in native languages (not just on native languages). It mentions A National Panel on First Nations Education and a proposed "First Nations Education Act." you might look to see what organizations were funded or proposed for funding by either of those.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 6:51 AM on September 13, 2016

I have no idea where (or if) you can donate, but they are currently actively trying to preserve Hawaiian sign language.
posted by Michele in California at 10:22 AM on September 13, 2016

There are numerous Native languages of California with only a handful of elderly speakers left. The Master-Apprentice Program is a successful scheme which pairs native speakers with dedicated younger learners (of the same heritage) who acquire the ability to speak the language, to keep it alive for another generation. This work is absolutely critical and it has to be done soon. The participants are paid from funds donated to AICLS, the Advocates for Indigenous California Language Survival, and you can find a Master-Apprentice donation button on the relevant page. I know of no better group to donate to which can immediately mean the difference between survival and silence. (For more on the MAP and language revitalization, read AICLS linguist Leanne Hinton's collection Bringing Our Languages Home.)
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 9:20 PM on September 13, 2016