Dr. Gregory D.S. Anderson, Ph.D.

Director of the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages, a non-profit organization dedicated to the documentation, revitalization, and maintenance of endangered languages. He specializes in the languages of Siberia. He has degrees in Linguistics from Harvard (A. B. 1989) and the University of Chicago (PhD 2000), and has conducted extensive fieldwork into the languages of the Altai Sayan group. Greg has done fieldwork in Nigeria on Eleme, in India on the Munda languages, in Bolivia on Kallawaya, and in Oregon on Siletz Dee-Ni. He has published widely in the fields of historical linguistics, descriptive grammar, morphology, verb typology, and the linguistics of Munda, Salishan, and Ogonoid languages. 

Selected Descriptive, Theoretical and Typological Papers

Dr. K. David Harrison, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Linguistics at Swarthmore College and Director of Research for the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages. His research focuses on endangered and little-documented languages, with primary emphasis on Turkic languages of Inner Asia (Central Siberia and Western Mongolia). To date, he has investigated Tuvan, Tsengel Tuvan, Tofa, Ös (Middle Chulym), Tuha (Dukha), and Monchak. In 2005, he began fieldwork on three Munda languages of Northeast India, in 2006 on the Siletz Dee-ni language of Oregon, and in 2007 on the Kallawaya language of Bolivia.

As a theoretician, David focuses on phonology (sound structures) and morphology (word structures). As a field linguist, he adopts the position that languages exist solely within a cultural matrix, and must be studied holistically and in their natural context. This means that in addition to studying abstract structures in the mind (such as grammar), he is keenly interested in what people have to say and how languages shape the structure of human knowledge.

His ethnographic research looks at indigenous knowledge, folklore, oral epics, and knowledge systems. Much of this research is described in his recent book "When Languages Die: The Extinction of the World's Languages and the Erosion of Human Knowledge".

RECENT WORK & CURRENT PROJECTS: Selected Descriptive, Theoretical and Typological Papers

James M. Faulkner, Chief Financial Officer

Graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College. Over 20 years experience as a small business owner and manager, specializing in affordable housing, real estate and investment management. As a non-profit volunteer he has extensive experience with organizations that include: soup kitchens, organic farms, yoga and health centers, hospice care, and services for elderly and disabled persons.