A project led by language expert Martha Macri is preserving native California languages, among the most endangered languages in the world.

The goal is to transcribe and increase access to field notes collected by John Peabody Harrington, American linguist and ethnologist, during the first half of the 20th century.

Harrington's vast collection of notes is a treasure of indigenous knowledge, recording what otherwise would be lost. Well over half of his collection's estimated 500,000 pages are on California Indian languages.

"This project is important not only to Native people and to linguists, but has useful applications for the scholarly community at large, including ecologists, historians, anthropologists and geographers," said Macri, professor of Native American studies and holder of the Rumsey Rancheria Endowed Chair in California Indian Studies.

With a three-year grant of $279,000 from the National Science Foundation, Macri and her research team are expanding on the original focus of transcribing notes by creating detailed guides and indices to Harrington's work.

-- Carolyn Sawai, director of communications, Office of Research