The University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa will support a $275,000 National Science Foundation (NSF) grant awarded to the College of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences of the University of Guam for the project “Developing CHamoru Language Infrastructure: Goggue Yan Chachalani Mo’na I Fino’-ta (Embrace and Make a Way Forward for Our Language).” This is the first endangered language documentation award granted to the liberal arts college.
UH Mānoa’s Andrea Berez-Kroeker, an associate professor of linguistics and recognized expert in the area of documenting endangered languages, recently met with University of Guam principal investigators to discuss ways in which she and UH Mānoa will contribute to the project.
Among the most significant contributions are training the Guam-based team in documentation methods, and preserving the materials in the Kaipuleohone UH Digital Language Archive.
Berez-Kroeker explains, “The CHamoru participants are the language experts, but UH Mānoa is very happy to help develop skills in language documentation processes, as well as provide a long-term home for the material. Most people will be able to access the language recordings at the University of Guam, but UH Mānoa will keep an archival version safe for posterity.”
Read the University of Guam news release for more about this grant.
—By Karin Mackenzie
