Committee on Endangered Languages and their Preservation (CELP)

The Committee on Endagered Languages and their Preservation (CELP)
The Committee on Endangered Languages and their Preservation (or CELP) is one of the committees of the Linguistic Society of America (LSA), founded in 1992 as a response to concerns in the linguistics community regarding the rapid loss of endangered languages worldwide. CELP is not devoted primarily to the preservation of languages in the Americas— though it is based in the United States and its members are professors at U.S. institutions— but many of its members are specialists on the indigenous languages of the Americas, and its effort to preserve and revitalize languages is worldwide in its significance.

CELP's mission statement: "The CELP encourages the study and documentation of endangered languages and makes technical assistance available to language communities seeking to preserve their languages fr om extinction. The Committee encourages academic institutions to offer assistance and support to members of threatened language communities working to preserve their languages. It also encourages institutions to offer training and degree programs oriented to the compilation of grammars and dictionaries of threatened and poorly documented languages, as well as to the documentation and study of naturally occurring speech of all kinds in threatened-language communities. As neither of these endeavours is possible in the absence of qualified and interested faculty, CELP recommends furthermore that institutions employ faculty members whose professional activities include active research on endangered langu ages and/or language maintenance activities. The Committee coordinates its activities with other relevant organizations, such as CIPL, the American Anthropological Association (AAA), the Society for the Study of Indigenous Languages of the Americas (SSILA), the Society for Linguistic Anthropology, the endangered language committees of the linguistic professional societies of Canada, Australia, Germany, and others, and several private organizations and foundations focused on language endangerment, including the Institute for the Preservation of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas."

Links to CELP
The Committee on Endangered Languages and their Preservation (CELP) website at the LSA

The CELP Facebook page

Background information about CELP