Specialized Academic, Public and Private Foundations Supporting Projects of Documentation, Preservation and Revitalization of Endangered Languages

Western Europe and USA

The Program of Documentation of Endangered Languages (DoBeS) Volkswagen Foundation

Address of the foundation:
Volkswagen-Stiftung
Kastanienallee 35
30519 Hannover
Germany
Telephone 0511 / 8381-0
Fax 0511 / 8381-344
E-mail info@volkswagenstiftung.de
Website

The Endangered Languages Documentation Program of Lisbet Rausing Charitable Fund, presently, Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Project (HRELP) administered by the School of Oriental & African Studies, London University / SOAS

Address of the foundation:
The Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Project
School of Oriental and African Studies
Thornhaugh Street
Russell Square
London
WC1H OXG
United Kingdom
Website

Foundation for Endangered Languages / FEL, GB

Mailing Address of the President of the Foundation:
Nicholas Ostler,
Batheaston Villa,
172 Bailbrook Lane,
Bath, BA1 7AA, England
Website

The Endagered Language Fund / ELF, USA

Address for ordinary mail:
The Endangered Language Fund
Dept. of Linguistics
Yale University
P. O. Box 208366
New Haven, CT 06520-8366
USA

Address for express mail:
The Endangered Language Fund
Department of Linguistics
370 Temple Street
Yale University
New Haven, CT 06511
USA
website

Swiss Society for Documentation of Endangered Languages (Schweizerische Gesellschaft für bedrohte Sprachen)

Mailing Address:
Schweizerische Gesellschaft für bedrohte Sprachen
Plattenstrasse 54, CH-8032 Zürich, Schweiz
Tel +41 1 6342185
Fax +41 1 6344357
E-mail: babel@spw.unizh.ch

German Society for Documentation of Endangered Languages (Deutsche Gesellschaft für bedrohte Sprachen / DGfS)

Website: www.uni-koeln.de/gbs/index.html

Projects of documentation of endangered languages are also Funded by the following large national scientific foundations:

• German Scientific Research Society / GSRS (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft / DFG) [website]
• USA National Science Foundation. [website]

There are no specialized foundations in this research area in Russia. Projects connected with documentation of endangered languages are sporadically supported by:

• Russian Foundation for Fundamental Research (RFFR), including the joint programme of RFFR-DFG (see below) [website]
• Russian Foundation for Humanities (RFH) [website]
• The “Ethnocultural Interactions in Eurasia” Program of the Praesidium of RAS (2003-2005) [website]

Nota bene

The average amount of funding provided by Russian scientific foundations to support the projects in this sphere is comparable to or even exceeds the average amounts of grants provided by such foundations as ELF, FEL, SchwGBS and DGfS.

At the same time the level of funding is ten times lower than amounts of funding provided within specialized programs like DoBeS or HRELP.

The main difficulties arising during the application process to programs DoBeS and HRELP include:

1. Necessary foreign partner acting as a co-applicant (during the application for support of a pilot or a basic research project, namely, under DoBeS program) and
2. Russian citizenship of the researcher, since according to requirements of these programs, the amount of funding requested should not exceed the average salary level in the researcher’s country. In HRELP funding requested as researcher’s salary for work in the project should be grounded by an official letter with the information on the regular salary issued in the place of work.

WWW lingsib.iea.ras.ru