The Endangered Language Documentation Programme (ELDP) aims to support the documentation and preservation of endangered languages across the globe. This initiative provides grants to individuals worldwide, including linguists, linguistic anthropologists, and community members skilled in linguistic documentation, facilitating the recording of endangered languages to safeguard these languages for future generations.
The ELDP grants focus on documenting as many endangered languages as possible, encouraging fieldwork on these languages, and creating a resource repository for linguists, social scientists, and language communities. They emphasize making documentary collections freely available. Specifically, the Legacy Materials Grants (LMG) offer up to €10,000 for projects lasting 6 to 12 months, with the condition that the materials are openly accessible at ELAR. Funded projects should produce a collection of materials including digital video and audio recordings, and written content like transcriptions and annotations. These projects aim to ensure that documentation materials are accessible, comprehensive, standardized, flexible, cumulative, and archivable. The goal is to support the development of documentation methodology and produce materials that serve both the language community and the scientific community, covering a wide spectrum of language use and including pedagogical materials.