Month: December 2024

This year we did a bit of everything: a book, a play, a summer program, a huge range of events for different audiences, and—as always—ongoing original research with languages and communities from around the world. Worldwide, it was a year dominated by consequential elections and questions of migration, mobility, and culture. As the only organization… Continue reading 2024: A Year of Languages

What is the future of linguistic diversity in America? Today it is more uncertain than ever.  This land is home to hundreds of Native languages and has received hundreds more through immigration—nowhere more so than in ELA’s home of New York City—but very few of those languages are assured a future here. Language shift and… Continue reading The future of linguistic diversity in America

Recent events at ELA have included weekly textile and language sessions with Indigenous Mexican New York women (below right) and a workshop with Indian “fontwallah”, master typographer and calligrapher Rajeev Prakash Khare organized by his niece, actor/playwright Shubhra Prakash (below left). Not to mention a very ELA celebration (not pictured) of El dia de los… Continue reading Fall events

Since this summer, an ELA team has been working closely and consistently with a young Afghani refugee from the remote Nuristan region, which contains a group of languages that have long puzzled specialists as to their historical position within the Indo-Iranian branch of Indo-European. We have been working with her to map the sound system, basic vocabulary and… Continue reading New work on Ashkun (Nuristani)