
The 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.
ÌÇÐÄVlog¹Ù·½ ²Ñā²Ô´Ç²¹¡¯²õ 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 ÌÇÐÄVlog¹Ù·½ 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 .
Berez-Kroeker explains, “The CHamoru participants are the language experts, but ÌÇÐÄVlog¹Ù·½ 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 ÌÇÐÄVlog¹Ù·½ Mānoa will keep an archival version safe for posterity.”
—By Karin Mackenzie
