Languages of This Place: Challenges and Opportunities

About This Event

The workshop builds on a series of events (Language, Memory, Future, November 5-6) celebrating the richness of languages of America focusing primarily on the histories and futures of two longstanding communities in Upstate New York, the Deaf community and the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, especially the Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫʼ. The workshop engages these communities and other language communities in our region, addressing issues of language rights, language survival, connections between language and culture, and implicit pressure of language technology toward homogenization, away from local knowledge. The workshop is organized around presentations, panel discussions, and general discussion, including onsite meals and coffee breaks to foster extensive informal interaction over the course of the day. Language, Memory, Future is framed as a celebration, but all of these issues are complex in light of issues of minoritized language rights, pressures causing language shift and risk of language loss.

Featured Guests

• Tawny Holmes-Hlibok, Gallaudet, DC
• Corinna Hill, RIT, Rochester NY
• Sara General & Amber Skye, Six Nations Polytech, Brantford, ON, Canada
• Ranjit Singh, Data & Society Research Institute, NY, NY
• Daniel Kaufman, CUNY Graduate Center & Queens College, Endangered Languages Alliance

Co-sponsors

• Cornell Department of Linguistics