new language documentation project

[Sarah Benor]

Dear Jewish language scholars,

Here's an article I wrote about documenting endangered Jewish languages:

https://www.jta.org/2021/02/08/opinion/were-running-out-of-time-to-preserve-endangered-jewish-languages-heres-how-we-can-stop-them-from-being-lost-forever

You might already be familiar with three of the initiatives I mention in the article: 

 the Endangered Language Alliance, the Jewish Language Project and the Mother Tongue Project. 

In addition, there's a new initiative focusing on Jewish languages: Wikitongues, in conjunction with the Living Tongues Institute. This project is looking for volunteers to submit videos (if you have the speaker's consent) to be included in their online archive or to help in other ways. I've cc'd Daniel Bögre Udell, director of Wikitongues, in case you would like to get in touch with him directly. And if he reaches with a question about a language you study, I hope you'll respond.

Let me know if you have other ideas for how we can advance the important and urgent work of documenting endangered Jewish languages.

Sarah

[Daniel Bögre Udell]

Hi everyone,

Thank you Sarah for this gracious introduction and to all for your time. Wikitongues helps people get started with language documentation, primarily oral histories, which we publish online and archive. As of last year, we also provide technical support to a cohort of language activists working to kickstart revitalization projects in their communities. Our friends at Living Tongues also facilitate grassroots language work, with a focus on lexicons.

As Sarah said, if you speak a Jewish language or have access to someone who does, we would be honored to work with you to record oral histories, or, if you already have documentation, we would love to help you archive it. We may also need help classifying crowdsourced content by dialect or speech variety, so if you’re a researcher who works on a Jewish language and you're open to lending your expertise, we would greatly appreciate your help.

If you have any questions, please feel free to write me directly or grab a time on my calendar. I look forward to meeting you!

א דאנק,

Daniel Bögre Udell
Co-Founder

Wikitongues
Every language in the world
wikitongues.org • @bogreudell • +1 (917) 975 1410

[David M. Bunis]

Sounds like a potentially marvelous and very worthwhile undertaking.

Behatslaha - Hot hatslokhe - Mazal alto ke tengash!

David

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David M. Bunis

Professor Emeritus, Center for Jewish Languages,

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mount Scopus Campus, Jerusalem

Co-Editor, Massorot: Studies in Language Traditions and Jewish Languages

Advisor, National Authority for Ladino and Its Culture, Israel

Member, Ladino Academy of Israel

Académico Correspondiente Extranjero, Real Academia Española

e-mail: david...@gmail.com; david...@mail.huji.ac.il

https://sites.google.com/site/davidbunis/; https://huji.academia.edu/DavidBunis;

http://pluto.huji.ac.il/~msladino

Office tel. 972-2-588-0255