A I C L S

    Welcome to the official webpage for Breath of Life – Silent No More Language Restoration Workshop for California Indian Languages, a biennial gathering hosted by the Advocates for Indigenous California Language Survival and the Linguistics Department of the University of California at Berkeley.

 

    UC Berkeley has 3 major archives which, collectively, house the largest collection of material on California Indian languages. Breath of Life is a response to California Indian communities and families who have a passionate yearning for their languages, for which there are no living first language speakers. By working with the linguistic fieldnotes and other documents and recordings, participants in the workshop can learn how to understand and use these materials for the purposes of language revitalization.

 

    At this week-long event, participants will explore the archives, find and learn how to make use of materials on their languages, and attend lectures and workshops on linguistics: aspects of language revitalization, language learning and teaching, song revitalization, dictionary making, and other topics. Each language group will be assigned a linguist as a partner to assist in their research and learning.

 

    We give thanks to the foresight of those who shared their knowledge with the linguists, making sure that much was recorded for posterity. Their descendants can find their language, and take it off the dusty shelves of the archives, and turn it back into living speech – giving it the Breath of Life, making sure the language is Silent No More.