Featured Story
New work on Ashkun (Nuristani)
Since this summer, an ELA team has been working closely and consistently with a young Afghani refugee from the remote Nuristan region
Forging a Future for Languages
Founded in 2010, the Endangered Language Alliance (ELA) is a non-profit dedicated to documenting Indigenous, minority, and endangered languages, supporting linguistic diversity in New York City and beyond.
Featured Language
Bishnupriya Manipuri
Bishnupriya Manipuri is a language spoken by over 100,000 people in the Indian states of Assam and Tripura and the neighboring Bangladeshi state of Sylhet and is related to such major regional languages as Bengali and Assamese. Bishnupriya Manipuri people have continually struggled for recognition of their rights and their culture in the face of larger groups.
ELA at a Glance
10 Projects
With ten current larger-scale projects and additional work on individual languages, ELA focuses on communities and individuals in the New York City area.
42 Languages
ELA has worked to different degrees on numerous projects with speakers of over a hundred languages spoken in New York City and beyond. More in-depth work continues on the several dozen featured here.
1 Mission
ELA's network is an extended family of linguists, language activists, community leaders, students, volunteers, and lovers of language in NYC and the world over.
Introducing ELA
Recent Updates
The future of linguistic diversity in America
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…
Fall events
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…