The Department of English is pleased to announce that Dr. Sylvia Schreiner (Assistant Professor of Linguistics), in collaboration with her colleague Dr. Lane Schwartz at UIUC, has been awarded a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant for the study of St. Lawrence Island / Central Siberian Yupik.
The research project is entitled, "NNA: Collaborative Research: Integrating Language Documentation and Computational Tools for Yupik, an Alaska Native Language”. The grant will span over three years and has been awarded through the NSF’s Documenting Endangered Languages (DEL) program and the Navigating the New Arctic (NNA) Big Idea. More information about the NSF’s Big Idea project can be found here.
The Yupik-speaking population has, over time, fallen to less than 1000 individuals, leaving the language endangered. Professor Schreiner’s work seeks to support the St. Lawrence Island community’s own efforts to keep the language alive, while at the same time investigating Yupik’s rare linguistic properties.
Professor Schreiner said that she and Professor Schwartz “... are thrilled to be able to continue our work with the Yupik community of St. Lawrence Island. In our work to document, digitize, and create computer tools for Yupik, we hope to support the community’s efforts to maintain and revitalize the language.”
August 21, 2018
