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，对科学、实践和道德构成了巨大的挑战。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信息来源。虽然有许多资料来源只涵盖部分内容，但没有一个提供支持文献、分析、教育和振兴工作所需的全部信息。濒危语言目录项目（ELCat）旨在提供关于世界濒危语言的准确、最新信息，即：一个有风险的语言的权威目录。 它将纠正现有数据库中的错误，提供现有来源无法提供的新数据，并以可查阅、可更新的在线格式提供这些信息。 该目录将允许用户评估，不仅是如何严重濒危的语言，但也有多少可以贡献的科学知识，以及如何以及它已经被描述。因此，它将提供以下信息：（1）使用者的数量、年龄和地点;（2）语言的遗传关系;（3）已经存在的描述材料和项目。目录的内容将由夏威夷大学和东密歇根大学的语言研究小组与区域专家合作编写。它的设计将使学者，社区成员和其他用户可以以多种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认识和促进对濒危语言进行更多研究的一种手段。它还将成为语言濒危社区的一个资源，为他们提供支持语言保护和振兴活动的材料。与此同时，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最紧迫的研究重点是记录那些濒危语言，这些语言的消失意味着对语言多样性的全面了解的丧失。通过提供这些语言的信息，ELCat不仅将扩大人类语言的科学知识，还将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.