New vistas: The intersection of endangered languages and language change at the 23rd International Conference on Historical Linguistics

科学家估计，到本世纪末，全世界7000种语言中至少有一半将不再使用。全球语言在线参考指南Glottolog在2016年发布的统计数据指出，这代表了242个不同的语系和188个只有一个成员的语系（“隔离语系”）。关于语言如何相互联系以及语言如何变化的科学知识（被称为“历史语言学”）主要集中在一个语系上，即印欧语系，其中包括英语、西班牙语等。对其他语系的研究，特别是那些濒临灭绝的语系的研究，如何为有关语言变化方式的学术研究提供信息？历史语言学如何促进对濒危语言的科学理解？本次研讨会将讨论这两个问题，作为历史语言学国际会议的一部分。更广泛的影响包括资助研究生和博士后的参与。更广泛的影响还包括通过纳入在线材料进行传播，这将扩大获取途径，并提交精选的会议论文，在同行评议的期刊上发表。德克萨斯大学圣安东尼奥分校将主办第23届历史语言学国际会议（ICHL 23）。布丽吉特·德林卡和合作者、德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校的佩西丝·埃普斯将组织一个会议项目，其中包括一个特别关注濒危语言和历史语言学的项目。第23届国际语言大会将包括全体会议发言人和讨论者，从全面代表不同地理区域、语系和类型学多样性的濒危语言研究人员中抽取专家。演讲者将带来与语言变化研究有关的广泛的方法和理论专业知识，涵盖传统重建，语言接触方法，系统发育方法和其他观点。会议上的其他报告将涉及濒危语言研究和历史语言学的交叉。参与研究人员将包括初级学者，他们的参与将由该奖项资助。ICHL 23将集中关注这些领域正在发展的令人兴奋的新方向。语言文档是语言学的一个相对较新的分支领域，近年来已经取得了进展。随着语言文档继续发展其与其他子领域的深度接触和贡献，该领域在学者和公众中的价值将会增长。同样，历史语言学的分支领域也可以从世界上未被开发的语系和地区的工作提供的令人兴奋的新方向中获益良多。这些新的探索前景有望为历史语言学学科提供新的视角和创新的方法，这将从这次复兴中受益匪浅。

Scientists estimate that at least half of the 7,000 languages worldwide will cease to be spoken by the end of the current century. Statistics published in 2016 by Glottolog, an online reference guide to the languages of the world, notes that this represents 242 distinct language families and 188 families with only one member ("isolates"). Scientific knowledge of how languages are related to one another and how languages change (known as "historical linguistics") has focused primarily on one language family, the Indo-European family, which includes English, Spanish, among others. How do studies of other language families, particularly those that are endangered, inform scholarly research about the way languages change? And how does the field of historical linguistics advance scientific understanding of endangered languages? This workshop will address these two questions as part of an international conference on historical linguistics. Broader impacts include funding to support the participation of graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. Broader impacts also include dissemination through the inclusion of online materials which will widen access, and submission of select conference papers to be published in a peer-reviewed journal. The University of Texas at San Antonio will host the 23rd International Conference on Historical Linguistics (ICHL 23). Bridget Drinka, along with collaborator Patience Epps, of the University of Texas at Austin, will organize a conference program that includes a special focus on endangered languages and historical linguistics. ICHL 23 will include plenary speakers and discussants, drawing from endangered language researchers who comprehensively represent different geographic regions, language families, and typological diversity. The speakers will bring a breadth of methodological and theoretical expertise relating to the study of language change, spanning traditional reconstruction, approaches to language contact, phylogenetic methods, and other perspectives. Additional presentations at the conference will touch on the intersection of endangered language study and historical linguistics. Participating researchers will include junior scholars whose participation will be funded by this award. ICHL 23 will focus attention on the exciting new directions in which these fields are moving. A relatively recent subfield of linguistics, language documentation has been gaining ground in recent years. As language documentation continues to develop its depth of engagement with and contribution to other subfields, the value of this area amongst scholars and members of the general public will grow. Likewise, the subfield of historical linguistics has much to gain from the exciting new directions offered by work in underexplored language families and regions of the world. These new vistas of exploration promise to deliver fresh perspectives and innovative approaches to the discipline of historical linguistics, which will benefit significantly from this reinvigoration.