Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages


The Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages is a nonprofit 501 organization based in Salem, Oregon, United States. The institute's focus is to scientifically document endangered languages, as well as assist communities with maintaining and revitalizing knowledge of their native languages. The institute's founder and director is Dr. Gregory D. S. Anderson. The institute's Director of Research is Dr. K. David Harrison.
One of the institute's projects involves training indigenous youth who are not native speakers of their communities' traditional languages to record and document their elders' languages, in order to improve documentation of those languages and to "build pride" among speakers.
The institute reports that they have created over 100 online talking dictionaries.
Living Tongues Institute is partnered with National Geographic’s Enduring Voices Project as both Dr. Gregory D. S. Anderson and Dr. K David Harrison are National Geographic Fellows. Other partners include :es:Academia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala|LA Academia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala and Ironbound Films: The Linguists.

Projects