282 languages identified in the estates of Eduard Seler and Walter Lehmann

Description

News item about an ongoing review of the archival estates of Eduard Seler and Walter Lehmann held at the Ibero-American Institute (IAI) in Berlin. The research, conducted by Cid Swanenvleugel, Martin Kohlberger, and Rita Eloranta, has so far identified materials relating to 282 languages from approximately 60 language families across North, Central, and South America. The work was carried out as part of Paths to the Past: Reconnecting Shiwiar and Mochica Peoples with Their Cultural Legacies, a project supported by the University of Saskatchewan’s Global Innovation Fund and led by Martin Kohlberger and Rita Eloranta. The preliminary findings highlight the importance of these archival holdings for linguistic research and for the Indigenous communities whose languages and histories they document.

Subject

Historical linguistics; language documentation; archival research; Indigenous languages; Eduard Seler; Walter Lehmann