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661px-Langs N — Language diversity in North America before 1492.

Welcome to the Endangered Languages of the Americas Revitalization Projects Database

Using a wiki interface provide by www.wikia.com, this database compiles information on all of the projects and organizations devoted to revitalizing the endangered languages of the Americas. This project was founded by an anthropology/linguistics student at Western Washington University.

The Purpose of the ELARP-Database

Wade_Davis_Cultures_at_the_Far_Edge_of_the_World — Wade Davis Cultures at the Far Edge of the World

Wade Davis, anthropologist, discusses languages and cultures in danger, and why they matter.

While there are roughly 7,000 language in the world today (SIL's Ethnologue records statistics for 7358 langauges in the world today), fully half of these languages will have gone extinct within the next century, the result of political, economic, and social pressure to adopt more influential, economically viable, and non-stigmatized languages. Of the world's 213 language families, about 136 of them are spoken in the Americas; since European colonization 91 language families that we knew of have gone extinct.

220px-Cree type proof — Example of the writing system for the Cree language, spoken in Canada.

The Endangered Languages of the Americas Revitalization Projects Database (ELARP-Database) is meant to be an online hub for the communication of information about on-going revitalization, preservation, and documentation projects and organizations focused on the indigenous languages of the Americas, all of which are endangered (some languages, like Quechua, which has 6 to 7 million speakers, may not be endangered in terms of numbers, but the sociolinguistic odds facing even the languages with the greatest number of speakers make them endangered). At the very least, it is hoped that this wiki will collect in one place as much information on as many projects and organizations as possible. In addition, at a later stage in the development of this wiki, it is hoped that seminal articles and books on the topic of the ELARP-Database, as well as significant language activists, will have pages devoted to them, to further the spread of information regarding endangered languages and to help any indigenous language speakers seeking such knowledge.

Locating projects and organizations in this database

Navigating a wiki can be difficult, especially when you do not know what to look for. ELARP-Database project and organization pages are organized in categories based on their countries of origin (international or specific) and the languages they support (general or specific, where possible the endonym of the language and the language family are noted). ELARP-Database also has pages for endangered language related holidays and events. Below are links to some useful categories to help you in your search of the ELARP-Database wiki.