Further Information : News

Project News

January - February 2013: First episode of Project director's BBC series hosted on PRI's The World (7 January 2013), an interview between the Project Director and La Trobe University discussing the BBC Radio 4 series is made available online (January 2013), Project director's talk on endangered cultures at Dartmouth College features in The Dartmouth.

December 2012: Project director presents a three-part series titled Our Language in Your Hands on BBC Radio 4 (03, 10, 17 December 2012), Project director's BBC series features on University of Cambridge Research News and is reviewed by The Independent (December 2012).

September - November 2012: Project director's grants and World Oral Literature Project joint grant with Language Lanscape reported in Yale University Department of Anthropology (01 November 2012), the Project's joint grant with Language Landscape awarded by Google Earth Outreach features in The Next Web (05 November 2012), Project features as highlight organisation on the Ethnos Project blog (November 2012).

July - August 2012: Reviews of the World Oral Literature Project 2012 workshop feature on Arctic Anthropology (29 June 2012), SIL International (3 July 2012), and Tim Brookes' Endangered Alphabets blog (8 July 2012), Ruth Finnegan's Oral Literature in Africa gets more coverage in Poets and Writers blog (31 August 2012).

April - June 2012: World Oral Literature Project and Open Book Publishers launch campaign to republish Ruth Finnegan's out-of-print classic Oral Literature in Africa on UnGlue It website and covered by Huffington Post (21 May 2012), CNET France (22 May 2012), University of Cambridge Research News (19 June 2012) and The Chronicle of Higher Education (19 June 2012), Project director's talk on the World Oral Literature Project on 01 June 2012 is hosted on Vimeo.

January - March 2012: World Oral Literature Project 1-day workshop planning event held in Cambridge, write-up available here (5 January 2012), Project features in leading Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun [PDF in Japanese] (06 January 2012), Project features in the newsletter of the International Society for Folk Narrative Research (ISFNR) [PDF] (February 2012), Project director discusses the World Oral Literature Project in a podcast for Yale University News [listen to MP3], Project director's involvement in a cross-project Himalayan research initiative features on Yale Environment News (March 2012), Project director discusses indigenous language preservation an interview with ABC Radio National, Australia [listen to MP3] (March 2012).

August - December 2011: Project grantee Dr Stephen Pax Leonard gives a lecture at Trinity Hall College, Cambridge, in October 2011 [watch lecture], Project director's Linguistic Survey of Sikkim features in Yale Daily News on 21 October 2011 [PDF], The Observer prints an article by Project grantee Dr Stephen Pax Leonard [PDF] (30 October 2011), Dr Stephen Pax Leonard's video on research experience is aired on ITV Anglia (25 November 2011), the Project director gives a presentation on Himalayan anthropology at the American Anthropology Association meeting [PDF of meeting report text] (27 November 2011).

April - July 2011: Project team is interviewed on BBC Three Counties Radio 21 April 2011 [listen to MP3] and on 03 June 2011 [listen to MP3], Project is featured in an interview with Nancy Campbell in Illustration magazine in July 2011.

January - March 2011: The Project is featured on the website of the BBC's new flagship series, The Human Planet, and covered in South Africa's Sunday Times (1 January) and BBC Three Counties Radio on 3 February [listen to MP3], Project team participates in endangered languages event at Shaler High School in Pittsburgh by video link on 17 February 2011 [PDF], Project is covered in the Guardian Education on 22 February 2011 [PDF], The Hindu on 23 February 2011 [PDF], the Higher Education Academy's Liaison Magazine in March 2011 [PDF], and the Calcutta Telegraph on 3 March 2011 [PDF], and features on RTÉ Radio 1's Mooney Show on 19 March 2011 [listen to MP3].

December 2010: The launch of our public database of language endangerment is widely covered on 9 December 2010 by a University of Cambridge press release, the Daily Telegraph [HTML or PDF], the Belfast Telegraph, the Chronicle of Higher Education in the United States, the Pink News, PhysOrg.com, BBC Radio 5 Live [listen to MP3], BBC Radio Wales [listen to MP3], BBC World TV [watch MP4 video] and BBC World Service Radio [two MP3 clips: A and B]; on 10 December 2010 by TG Daily, the Cambridge Network, the Fyne Times, the Advocate; on 12 December 2010 by Kent on Sunday [PDF]; on 13 December 2010 by The Hindu [PDF], The Calcutta Telegraph, The Asian Age, Rajasthan Patrika [PDF], Bartaman (a West Bengal Daily) [PDF], BBC Radio Coventry & Warwickshire [listen to MP3], BBC Radio Three Counties; on 14 December 2010 on Sue Dougan's afternoon show on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire [listen to MP3] and on 16 December 2010 by Times Higher Education. Project team members are invited to deliver keynote address at a Digital Archiving of Community Knowledge Conference held at Ambedkar University in Delhi (15-18 December) and to speak about the Project at the India International Centre in Delhi on 18 December 2010.

November 2010: Project team invited to participate in a GigaPan technology fellowship at Carnegie Mellon University, speak at Cornell's Language Resource Center and present at an Executive Program Committee invited roundtable session on digital repatriation at the American Anthropological Association meeting in New Orleans. A special issue of Language Documentation and Description, guest edited by Project staff based on presentations held at our workshop in December 2009, has gone to press, and can be ordered online by clicking here. The Project also features in the CRASSH 2009-2010 Annual review.

July - October 2010: The Project is part of an Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO)-funded cooperation network entitled 'Multimedia Research and Documentation of African Oral Genres' led by Dr Daniela Merolla at Leiden University and is covered in the Cambridge News on 27 July 2010 [see PDF], the Project and one of its grantees is profiled on BBC One's Look East and on the BBC Radio 4 series Word of Mouth, click here to listen (August 2010), Project grantee Dr Stephen Leonard's forthcoming work with the Inughuit in remote north-west Greenland is widely covered in the UK and international media, including the Guardian and the BBC Today Programme. The University of Cambridge has issued a press release on Dr Leonard's research project (August 2010), Project director delivers a lecture at the Cambridge Alumni Weekend [watch a short film about the event by clicking here] (September 2010), Project staff are invited to speak to the Cambridge Endangered Languages and Cultures Graduate-Faculty Research Group (CELC), CRASSH, University of Cambridge, on (12 October 2010), Project grantee Dr Stephen Pax Leonard's first dispatch from Greenland is covered in The Observer (October 2010).

March - June 2010: Project team interviewed by Kathryn Ryan on Nine to Noon, Radio New Zealand, on 24 March 2010; also involved in establishing the Cambridge Endangered Languages and Cultures Group (CELC), featured in the Cambridge Alumni Magazine and present at the Cambridge Science Festival, short video about the Project released by Cambridge Ideas (also featured on YouTube), Project featured on the Archival Platform Blog and in the University of Cambridge 2009 Annual Report (April 2010), Project team invited to talk at arcadia@cambridge (May 2010).

January - February 2010: The Project team present at the Department of Linguistics Seminar, School of Oriental and African Studies, London (12 January 2010), radio interview with Elizabeth Alcock on FM4 ORF Austrian Radio [listen to 22 January, MP3 and 23 January, MP3], radio interview with Anna Kovacs on Hungarian Public Radio MR1-Kossuth [listen to 15 February, MP3], the Project is covered by Radio Free Europe on 19 February and 21 February.

October - December 2009: The Project is profiled in the Cambridge University Newsletter, click here to read the PDF (13 November, 2009), David Jefferies discusses the Project in The Cambridge Student, click here to read the PDF (26 November 2009), the Project is profiled in the Independent on Sunday, click here to read the PDF (13 December 2009), the Project is profiled in La Repubblica, click here to read the PDF (17 December 2009), the Project is profiled in PhysOrg, WorldHum and OurFuturePlanet, and covered on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation show As It Happens, radio interview with Sean Moncrieff on Newstalk (30 December 2009).

August - September 2009: World Oral Literature Project staff invited to attend and present at a conference on Archiving Culture in the Digital Age at the Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre (SAC) in Bangkok (6-7 August 2009), the Project features on the American Anthropological Association (AAA) blog (27 August 2009), the Project receives widespread international media coverage, in the Guardian, the MailOnline, the Telegraph, the Irish Examiner, La Jornada, Cambridge News, TeleText, Yahoo, AFP, Liverpool Daily Post, ResourceShelf, Vesti, the Asian Age [PDF], Western Morning News, Cambridge Network and the Society of Antiquaries of London Online Newsletter. Radio interviews on 25 August with BBC Radio Ulster: Talk Back, and on 26 August with BBC Radio Wales: Good Morning Wales and BBC Radio Guernsey: Gary Burgess. University Office of External Affairs and Communications releases a press statement about the Project on 27 August 2009 and the University of Cambridge Research Horizons profiles the Project in its Autumn 2009 issue (issue 10), click here for HTML or PDF.

June - July 2009: The World Oral Literature Project features on the free online encyclopedia Wikipedia (June 2009), the World Oral Literature Project features in the blog by Peter Austin, Marit Rausing Chair in Field Linguistics and Director of the Endangered Languages Academic Program at SOAS (9 July 2009).