Sustaining Indigenous Knowledge: Learning Tools and Community Initiatives for Preserving Endangered Languages and Local Cultural Heritage

The contributions to this volume present ways in which indigenous knowledge in minority communities is sustained and how attempts are made to safeguard endangered languages. Two recent seminars at the Foundation for Siberian Cultures were devoted to the discussion of community-based pedagogical initiatives in Siberia, with comparative examples from other parts of the world. In this volume, scholars with backgrounds in anthropology, linguistics and in the use of new media share their experiences of how to design adequate learning tools in collaboration with their native colleagues. In their articles they discuss previous shortcomings and limitations, with the aim of exploring future directions for maintaining cultural diversities, not only in Siberia, but also among many other peoples of the world.

Tjeerd de Graaf (ed.) has specialized in the phonetic aspects of ethnolinguistics. After a fieldwork trip with a Japanese expedition to Sakhalin in 1990, he has contributed to various research projects on endangered languages and sound archives related to ethnic minorities in Russia. Since his retirement in 2003 he spent a semester at the University of St. Petersburg as visiting professor, and worked as guest researcher at the Slavic Research Centre of Hokkaido University (Japan). He is a board member of the Foundation for Endangered Languages and research fellow at the Frisian Academy, which coordinates research on European minority languages.