Ethnolinguistic Capacitybuilding
CELD, UNIPA and speech communities
It is widely agreed that the challenges posed by the extent and speed with which many of the close to 7,000 languages still spoken today are disappearing cannot be met solely by the involvement of professional linguists and researchers from affiliated disciplines. Rather, it is necessary that the endangered speech communities themselves as well as local researchers get involved in efforts to document and maintain endangered languages.
CELD at Universitas Negeri Papua (UNIPA) offers both, advanced on the job training for Papuan linguists concerned with endangered languages in their region as well as workshops and material development support for teachers and cultural activists in the speech communities.
The capacity building efforts are linked to various national and international networks. Yusuf Sawaki has been training students in language documentation and description at Universitas Negeri Papua in Manokwari for a number of years; Dr. Alexander Loch managed developmental capacity building programs since 1998, including a research center for cultural appropriate teaching materials in neighboring East-Timor. CELD is actively supported by Prof. Nikolaus P. Himmelmann, who has conducted training workshops with Indonesian high potentials in various locations since 2005. Just recently, Willem Burung, who has been working as a field linguist in Papua since 1992 and teaching linguistics for a number of years, has joined the team.
