Planning Grant: Collaborative Research: Increasing Montana's Tribal College Engagement in Language Documentation and Revitalization

蒙大拿州有九种美洲原住民语言（黑脚语、蒙大拿萨利希语、库特奈语、北方夏延语、格罗斯托语、克里语、齐佩瓦语、克劳语和阿西尼博因语），并有七所部落学院和大学（TCU）。该项目加强了美国国会1990年通过的《美洲原住民语言法》的授权，该法呼吁包括美洲原住民活动家在内的利益攸关方共同行动，“宣布维护、保护和促进美洲原住民使用、实践和发展”这些语言的权利和自由。蒙大拿州的TCU一直在提供美洲原住民语言课程，以鼓励原住民语言的可持续性。蒙大拿大学（UM）和TCU之一的Chief Dull Knife College（CDKC）之间的这一合作项目旨在通过与UM，CDKC和亚利桑那大学美国印第安语言学院（AILDI）的教师和培训合作伙伴交流思想和知识，丰富语言教师和活动家的经验，以支持蒙大拿州TCU的努力。拟议的活动促进了各机构之间的积极关系，并将有助于查明可能成为今后培训讲习班重点的现有问题。该项目更广泛的影响包括在蒙大拿州TCU建立语言文档计划的能力，通过语言文档和教育中使用的技术加强STEM教育，并为由于位置偏远而难以获得培训的代表性不足的人群提供服务。这一合作项目旨在为跨越机构界限的沟通建立共同基础。它旨在促进这样一种想法，即增加语言学知识，作为一门科学，可以使TCU与土著语言可持续性有关的方案受益，以及语言学可以从社区投入中受益的想法。蒙大拿州的土著语言来自四个不同的语系：阿尔冈琴语系、萨利希语系、苏语系和孤立的库特奈语系。正因为如此，拟议的项目将推进我们对这些语言的语言学知识。该项目还创新地应用了语言学家和社区语言研究人员之间的合作，这种方法被称为社区研究，通过传统环境知识和民族科学的透镜，促进和加强我们对这些语言的语音、音韵、形态句法和语义的理解。一个由来自土著社区的四名语言活动家和四名非土著语言学家组成的合作小组将前往蒙大拿州的土族塞人单位，了解他们目前的努力和语言活动的未来目标。然后，合作小组将与蒙大拿州技术合作单位的选定参与者举行会议，进行进一步讨论。将汇编这些活动的成果，通过举办讲习班，将这些信息反馈给土著社区，供今后的文献研究和土著语言教育使用。这些项目成果有可能将土著人的认知方式纳入语言文献项目。

The state of Montana is home to nine Native American languages (Blackfoot, Montana Salish, Kutenai, Northern Cheyenne, Gros Ventre, Cree, Chippewa, Crow, and Assiniboine) and has seven Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs). This project reinforces the mandate of the Native American Languages Act, passed by the U.S. Congress in 1990, which called for stakeholders, including Native American activists, to act together to "declare to preserve, protect and promote the rights and freedom of Native Americans to use, practice and develop" these languages. The TCUs in Montana have been offering Native American language courses to encourage the sustainability of Native languages. This collaborative project between the University of Montana (UM) and one of the TCUs, Chief Dull Knife College (CDKC), aims to support the efforts of Montana TCUs by enriching language instructors' and activists' experience through an exchange of ideas and knowledge with instructors and training partners from UM, CDKC and the American Indian Language Institute (AILDI) of the University of Arizona. The proposed activities foster a positive relationship across institutions and will help identify current issues that may become the focus of future training workshops. The project's broader impacts include building the capacity of language documentation programs at Montana TCUs, enhancing STEM education through technology utilized in language documentation and education, and serving underrepresented populations who often have difficulty accessing training due to the remoteness of their locations. This collaborative project seeks to cultivate common ground for communication across institutional boundaries. It aims to promote the idea that an increased knowledge of linguistics, as a science, can benefit TCU programs related to indigenous language sustainability as well as the idea that linguistics can benefit from community input. The indigenous languages spoken in Montana are from four different families: Algonquian, Salishan, Siouan, and Kootenai, an isolate. Because of this, the proposed project will advance our knowledge of the linguistics of these languages. The project is also innovative in applying collaboration among linguists and community language researchers, a method known as Community Based Research (CBR) in a way that fosters and enhances our understanding of these languages' phonetics, phonology, morphosyntax and semantics through the lens of traditional environmental knowledge and ethnosciences. A collaborative team, consisting of four language activists from indigenous communities and four non-indigenous linguists, will travel to TCUs in Montana to learn about the current efforts and future goals of their language activities. The collaborative team will then host meetings with selected participants from the Montana TCUs for further discussions. Results will be compiled from these activities feed into future documentation research and indigenous language education through workshops that will circulate the information back to indigenous communities. These project outcomes have the potential to implement indigenous ways of knowing into language documentation projects.