The Afranaph Project Development Workshop: Washington, D.C., Fall 2019

Afranaph计划旨在围绕非洲语言研究的电子资源建立一个活跃的研究社区。在过去的15年里，以英语为母语的顾问一直在提供有关特定语法领域的数据，以期发现未被报道的语言（其中一些濒临灭绝）的语法结构，并发现语言科学的新模式。Afranaph数据库提供了来自近50位顾问和几乎同样多的语言的数据，除了作为语言教学的工具，其他语言领域类似项目的模型，以及非学术社区语言项目的合作伙伴（例如，非政府组织的词典）之外，Afranaph已经成为广泛的语言研究人员的宝贵资源。2019年秋季，Afranaph项目开发研讨会将邀请来自非洲、欧洲和北美的语言学家到乔治城大学展示他们的研究成果。本次盛会将包括来自Afranaph研究项目负责人的报告、语言学家调查Afranaph语言的新工作，以及利用Afranaph资源的新研究方向的建议。母语顾问的工作将得到强调，因为他们中的许多人是早期的职业研究人员，他们在当地社区获得的资源较少，并且可以从彼此和西方学术界的合作和参与中受益。总的来说，这次研讨会将允许研究人员探索发现，并加强Afranaph已经开发的研究社区和基础设施。此外，这是一个难得的机会，可以向专家观众介绍关于研究不足的非洲语言的新理论研究，在那里可以确定新的经验模式，并认识到它们对该领域的影响。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The Afranaph Project aims to build an active research community around electronic resources for the study of African languages. For the past 15 years, native speaker consultants have been contributing data about particular areas of grammatical interest, with a view toward discovering grammatical structures in under-reported languages (some of them endangered) and uncovering patterns new to linguistic science. With data from almost 50 consultants and almost as many languages freely available online and in the Afranaph Database, Afranaph has become a valuable resource for a wide range of linguistic researchers, in addition to serving as a tool for linguistic pedagogy, a model for similar projects on other language areas, and a partner in language projects for non-scholarly communities (e.g., dictionaries for NGOs). In the Fall of 2019, the Afranaph Project Development Workshop will bring linguists from Africa, Europe and North America to Georgetown University in order to present their research. This capstone event will include reports from the leaders of the Afranaph research projects, new work from linguists investigating the languages of Afranaph, and proposals for new research directions employing Afranaph resources. Work by the native speaker consultants will be highlighted, since many of them are early career researchers who have less access to resources in their local communities, and can benefit from collaboration and engagement with each other and the western academic community. Overall, this workshop will allow researchers to explore the discoveries and strengthen the research community and infrastructure that Afranaph has developed. Moreover, it is a rare opportunity for new theoretical research on understudied African languages to be presented to an expert audience, where new empirical patterns can be identified and their impact on the field can be recognized.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.