FEDERAL AGENCIES TAKE STEPS TO DOCUMENT ENDANGERED LANGUAGES;
NEH, NSF launch effort to create digital records of dying languages

WASHINGTON, D.C. (May 5, 2005)--The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) today announced that they have awarded 13 fellowships and 26 institutional grants in their Documenting Endangered Languages (DEL) partnership, a new, multi-year effort to preserve records of key languages before they become extinct. More than 3,000 of the 6,000-7,000 currently used human languages are headed for oblivion, experts estimate. The new DEL awards, totaling $4.4 million, will support digital documentation work on more than 70 such languages.

"This is a rescue mission to save endangered languages," said NEH Chairman Bruce Cole. "Language is the DNA of a culture, and it is the vehicle for the traditions, customs, stories, history, and beliefs of a people. A lost language is a lost culture. Fortunately, with the aid of modern technology and these federal funds, linguistic scholars can document and record these languages before they become extinct."

The Museum of the Cherokee Indian received a challenge grant of $300,000 that, coupled with $900,000 in private donations, will endow educational programming and support construction of a new education wing.

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Western Carolina University is using its $250,000 challenge grant and $750,000 in nonfederal gifts to endow a professorship and programming in Cherokee Studies.