Speaking Place

“Expenses office expense 4,845 travel 15,115 meetings 123 project supplies 2,139 bank/currency fees 454 dues & memberships 408 total 23,084”

“Accounts payable and accrued expenses 1,196 797 loans from officers 2,000 0”

“Speaking place develops documentary and new media solutions for use in promoting educational, scientific, and charitable purposes within the meaning of section 501 (c) (3).”

“The organization worked on several projects during fiscal 2015. Here are descriptions of the most substantial. 1. Speaking place continued work as a partner in an indiana university-sponsored documenting endangered languages grant, funded by the national endowment for the humanities. A team consisting primarily of linguist dr. Daniel suslak of indiana university, filmmaker ben levine and videographer and trainer, daniel quintanilla, worked in the mixe community of totontepec, oaxaca state, mexico. The project had two goals: the first was community self-documentation, i.e., training members of the totontepec community to document their ayk language as it is spoken in a variety of everyday activities in their community. A local transcription and translation team was also trained to prepare subtitle files and collect data for an online dictionary. Secondly, this grant supported the development and implementation of the first ayk language portal, an online resource linking the video archive with the online dictionary and other files. (see https://ayportal.indiana.edu) a media lab was permanently installed in the municpal offices of the village of totontepec. This grant concluded in may of 2016. The documentation and the online community video archive of endangered language and activities will be central to the life and identity of the mixe people and important for future scientific research. 2. The organization began a new project in partnership with the passamaquoddy tribe in maine, usa. The full project title is: ktolatuwewakonon kcocahkumon / our language is our soul: a multi-component language immersion model for teaching and restoring passamaquoddy. This is a three-year project with several integrated components: 1. Two passamaquoddy immersion preschools, one in each community; 2. Development of a model for language learning for "fluent comprehenders" of passamaquoddy language; 3. A family and community outreach component; and 4. An upgrade of the passamaquoddy-maliseet language portal to make the portal more accessible to community members and especially to families, in order to give the language a larger place in the home. Speaking place staff have been consultants on the project, involved in teacher training, program and curriculum development, family outreach, language reacquisition, and video production. These schools are the latest in an evolving series of efforts members of the passamaquoddy community have made to re-establish their language and culture. The program is funded by ana, the administration for native americans, under the u.s. Department of health and human services. 3. Other activities this year included training in language documentation at colang 2016 (institute on collaborative language research) in fairbanks, alaska; new edits on two previously produced training videos for medical personnel on health disparities for the daniel hanley center for health leadership; and an ongoing development of a documentary film, incident at sipayik. The film will be used for community education, with a goal of eliminating prejudice, violence, and community tensions.”