Collaborative Research: Endangered Languages Catalog (ELCat)

语言丧失是语言学面临的最紧迫的问题之一，它对科学、实践和道德都提出了巨大的挑战。因此，值得注意的是，目前还没有关于世界濒危语言的集中的、最新的资料来源。尽管有许多部分覆盖的来源，但没有一个提供支持文档、分析、教育和更新工作所需的所有信息。濒危语言目录项目（ELCat）的目的是提供关于世界濒危语言的准确和最新信息，即一份濒危语言的明确目录。它将纠正现有数据库中的错误，并提供现有来源无法提供的新数据，以可访问和可更新的在线格式提供这些信息。该目录不仅可以让用户评估一种语言的濒危程度，还可以评估它对科学知识的贡献程度，以及它已经被描述得有多好。因此，它将提供以下信息：(1)说话者的人数、年龄和地点，(2)该语言的遗传关系，以及(3)已有哪些描述性材料和项目。该目录的内容将由夏威夷大学和东密歇根大学的语言学研究小组与地区专家合作制定。它的设计将使学者、社区成员和其他用户能够以许多不同的方式提交和注释目录信息，例如，通过智能手机，以及传统的互联网应用程序。ELCat网站将成为提高公众意识和促进对濒危语言研究的一种手段。它还将成为语言受到威胁的社区的资源，为他们提供支持语言保护和振兴活动的材料。同时，ELCat将为社会科学和人文科学的进步做出贡献。语言学和其他认知科学中最紧迫的研究重点是记录那些濒危语言，这些语言的消失将意味着对语言多样性的全面认识的丧失。通过提供这些语言的信息，ELCat不仅可以扩展人类语言的科学知识，还可以进一步了解人类文化和认知能力。

Language loss is one of the most urgent problems facing linguistics, posing scientific, practical, and moral challenges of enormous proportions. Thus it is remarkable that no centralized, up-to-date source of information on the world's endangered languages currently exists. Although there are many sources with partial coverage, none provides all the information needed to support documentation, analysis, education, and revitalization efforts. The Endangered Languages Catalog project (ELCat) is designed to provide accurate, up-to-date information on the endangered languages of the world, i.e., a definitive catalog of languages at risk. It will correct errors in existing databases and provide new data not available from existing sources, offering this information in an accessible, updatable online format. The catalog will allow users to assess, not only how critically endangered a language is, but also how much it can contribute to scientific knowledge and how well it has already been described. Thus it will provide information on: (1) the number, age, and location of the speakers, (2) the genetic affiliation of the language, and (3) what descriptive materials and projects already exist. The content of the catalog will be developed by the linguistic research teams at the University of Hawaii and Eastern Michigan University, in collaboration with regional experts. It will be designed so that scholars, community members, and other users can submit and annotate catalog information in many different ways, e.g., via smart phone, as well as conventional Internet applications. The ELCat website will be a means of raising public awareness and fostering increased research on endangered languages. It will also constitute a resource for communities whose languages are at risk, providing them with materials to support language preservation and revitalization activities. At the same time, ELCat will contribute to advances in the social and human sciences. The most pressing research priority in linguistics and other cognitive sciences is the documentation of those endangered languages whose disappearance would mean loss of knowledge of the full range of linguistic diversity. By providing information on these languages, ELCat will not only expand scientific knowledge of human language but also further understanding of human cultures and cognitive abilities.