Asociación de Linguística y Filología de América Latina

Minutes of the meeting of the General Assembly of CIPL

South Africa - Cape Town

(Cape Town International Convention Centre)

6 July 2018

Present: David Bradley (president), Ik-Hwan-Lee (vice-president), Emanuele Banfi, Timothy Coleman, Bridget Drinka (replacement of John Charles Smith), Nikolaus Himmelmann, Dermeval da Hora, Shikegi Kaji, Andrej Kibrik, Manuel Leonetti, Rajend Mesthrie, Frederick Newmeyer, Miguel Oliveira Jr, Victoria Rau, Reinier Salverda, Pieter Seuren, Frieda Steurs, Eno-Abasi Urua, Piet van Sterkenburg (secretary-general) and Camiel Hamans (minutes) 

Apologies: Anders Ahlqvist, John Ole Askedal, Tinatin Bolkvadze, Ariel Cohen, Isabel Falé, Gonçalo Fernandes, Kai von Fintel, Eva Hajicova, Bernhard Hurch, Istvan Kenesei, Elzbieta Manczak-Wohlfeld, Jacques Moeschler, Cecilia Robustelli, Bonifacas Stundzia, Jef Verschueren and Deniz Zeyrek Bozşahin 

Absent without notice: Liam Breatnach, Aditi Lahiri, Alain Lemaréchal, Marja-Liisa Helasvuo, Vesna Polovina, Irene Rapp, Marius Sala, Agris Timuska, Andres Urrutia, Mark de Vos and Serhiy Yermolenko

1. Opening

David Bradley opens the meeting and welcomes all delegates, especially the representatives of organizations which recently joined CIPL. He particularly welcomes Rajend Mesthrie, president of the excellently organized ICL 20. On behalf of the General Assembly he thanks him once more for the wonderful job he and his team has done. In accordance with the bylaws, Rajend Mesthrie will serve CIPL as a member of the Executive Committee for the next five years. 

The president also notes that this meeting would be the last GA in which Prof Van Sterkenburg was to participate as secretary-general. Later in this meeting he will return to the farewell of Prof Van Sterkenburg. 

At the request of the president, Camiel Hamans, seconded by Ik-Hwan Lee, proposes to approve the agenda. The GA agrees.

2. Minutes of the GA Meeting of 27 July 2013, Geneva

No amendments are put forward. 

At the request of the president, Camiel Hamans, seconded by Frederick Newmeyer, proposes to adopt the minutes.

3. New members

At the moment, the membership of CIPL consists of 48 associations, organizations and societies, which is a considerable increase compared to the last GA. However, CIPL lost contact with some organizations and a few associations had to be expelled due to a large backlog in the payment of the annual fee. One of the priorities of the new secretary-general will be to increase the number of members and to renew the contacts with associations that stopped being a member of CIPL.

4. Linguistic Bibliography

The SG presented the report of the publishers of the Linguistic Bibliography, which was enclosed with the agenda. He noticed that the printed circulation of the Linguistic Bibliography decreased from 1200 copies to 200 in 25 years. Unfortunately, the increase of subscriptions to the online version by no means compensates for the reduction of the printed circulation. Brill is working on a new marketing campaign. In addition, delegates are suggested to promote the bibliography. Brill will be very happy to assist with any promotional activity if given 4-6 weeks advance notice. 

The SG also asks for attention to another problem that the editorial staff faces. The editors need the assistance of contributors who have access to the publications of smaller publishers or societies and 2 universities that do not find their way to libraries and search engines outside their countries. The compilers of Linguistic Bibliography especially need assistance in South East Asia, India, China, Japan and the Middle East, in Africa and for the indigenous languages of the Americas. Brill pays a small fee per entry of the Linguistic Bibliography. The delegates are requested to look for enthusiastic linguists who want to contribute to the work of the Linguistic Bibliography.

5. Endangered Languages

CIPL’s interest in endangered languages

President David Bradley reminds the GA of how CIPL started the discussion about endangered languages at the International Congress of Linguists in Quebec in 1992. In preparation for this congress, the then CIPL-president and secretary-general Robert Robins and Bob Uhlenbeck had published their ground-breaking volume on endangered languages in 1991. From this moment on CIPL became and remained very active in the field of endangered languages and became one of the founders of the Unesco Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger. In the last few years, CIPL has organized or supported summer schools on languages in danger, taken the initiative to organize conferences on endangered languages and already co-organized conferences in Turkey, Georgia and Lithuania. As president of CIPL, David Bradley has also organized or taken part in workshops on the endangerment of languages in China, Thailand, England and North America. At this ICL, CIPL made it possible for the fifth time to devote extensive attention to languages at risk.

Award

To underline the importance of documentation, study and teaching of endangered languages, CIPL has established an award: The Endangered Languages Award. An Advisory Committee, consisting of David Bradley, Edrinnie Kayambazinthu, Nicholas Ostler, Tseard de Graaf and Matthias Brenzinger, elected professor Kemmonye C. Monaka from the University of Botswana as winner of the 2018 Endangered Languages Award. The Executive Committee of CIPL accepted the nomination and therefore professor Monaka was awarded the 2018 Endangered Languages Award. 

Kemmonye C. Monaka is co-author of the Shekgalagari grammar published in 2008. She also published a very wide variety of phonetic and other studies of this language, which is her mother tongue. She has been involved in extensive community efforts within the Shekgalagari community of Botswana to strengthen their language; she has documented the Shekgalagari orthography and been involved in the preparation of dictionaries and other practical and research materials. She has also researched multilingualism, education and the process of language endangerment in Botswana, and done extensive work on a range of other Bantu languages and particularly on a number of endangered San languages such as !Xóõ. 

After awarding the prize, which in addition to the honor includes an amount of $ 2,500 to spend on future work in the area of endangered languages, Prof Kemmonyne C. Monaka is given the floor. She thanks the committee and CIPL for this honor. The award is not only important to herself, but even more so to her university and to the work on endangered languages in Botswana.

Unesco Atlas

Next, Reinier Salverda is given the floor. In his former capacity of president of the Frisian Academy Reinier Salverda was already heavily involved in the work on the Atlas. He still is and therefore was asked by the SG to report to the GA on this matter. 

Reinier Salverda recalled how CIPL was involved in the work on the Atlas from the beginning. One of CIPL’s former presidents, the late Stephen Wurm, compiled the first and second edition of the Atlas. However, in 2013 Unesco wanted to stop the work on the Atlas because of budgetary reasons. After two meetings and intense discussion with all stakeholders, this idea was given up and it was decided to continue the Atlas. However, the new plan includes a description of all languages of the world. 3 One may ask whether this is not too ambitious, especially since the budget is very small. This autumn, Reinier Salverda will have the pleasure of meeting the new secretary-general of Unesco and he will discuss the feasibility of the new plan. 

There are no comments from the floor.

6. Next Venue 

The SG reports to the meeting that several organizations have expressed their interest in organizing ICL 21. The Latin American Association for Linguists (ALFAL), represented by Dermeval da Hora, the Linguistic Society of Taiwan, represented by Victoria Rau, the Linguistic Society of Belgium, represented by Timothy Coleman, and the Canadian Linguistic Association, represented by Frederick Newmeyer, show interest. 

Andrej Kibrik of the Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences expresses his interest in the organization of ICL 22 and wants to notify the GA in advance of the possible willingness of the Academy to host the conference in 2028. The then Russian delegate will contact the secretarygeneral in 2022 about this issue. 

The SG explains that it is the Executive Committee which will decide upon the next venue in its meeting in spring 2019. All delegates who want to express their interest will be asked to provide the Executive Committee with a detailed and serious bid. Later this year, the new SG will announce the requirements that a bid must meet. 

After this introduction, Dermeval da Hora and Victoria Rau, together with her colleague from Taiwan National University, were successively given the opportunity to present their venue. At a question from Reinier Salverda about possible cooperation with other organizations, Miguel Oliveira, the representative of the Brazilian Association for Linguistics ABRALIN, replied and assured that his organization will certainly cooperate with ALFAL and that it is to be expected that Portuguese organizations are also willing to cooperate. 

Frederick Newmeyer indicates that the University of Quebec at Montréal was not yet ready to make a serious proposal. The same applies to Timothy Coleman. At the moment the Linguistic Society of Belgium is rallying for support from the Belgian universities. Possible venues are Leuven and/or Antwerp.

7. Elections 

The EC appoints Emanuele Banfi and Pieter Seuren as election committee. Both accept the appointment. The SG mentions that Fredrick Newmeyer, Camiel Hamans and he received proxies from colleagues who were not able to attend this meeting. All these written proxies have been checked and found to be in order. 

In the first three rounds of the election the position of president, vice-president and secretarygeneral are on the agenda. There were two candidates for each position. David Bradley was elected as the new president with 27 votes, Frederick Newmeyer received 14 votes. Subsequently, Ik-Hwan Lee was elected as vice-president, again with 27 votes. 14 Delegates voted for Victoria Rau. Frieda Steurs was elected as the successor of Piet van Sterkenburg with 36 votes. Her opposing candidate, Reinier Salverda, received 5 votes.

In the fourth round, the GA elected a new Executive Committee. As stated before, the outgoing president of the local organizing committee of ICL 20 Rajend Mesthrie will also serve as a member of the EC. There were nine candidates for the remaining four seats in the committee. The result of this 4 election was: Victoria Rau (33 votes), Frederick Newmeyer (29 votes), Eno-Abasi Urua (24 votes), Dermeval da Hora (20 votes), Jacques Moeschler (18 votes), Miquel d’Oliveira (14 votes), Nikolaus Himmelmann (13 votes), Elzbieta Manczak (5 votes), Denis Zeyrek Bozşahin (4 votes). Therefore, the new Executive Committee consists of: Dermeval da Hora, Rajend Mesthrie, Frederick Newmeyer, Victoria Rau and Eno-Abasi Urua. Jacques Moeschler is the first substitute. 

David Bradley thanks Emanuele Banfi and Pieter Seuren for fulfilling this difficult task, thanks the outgoing members of the Executive Committee for all they have done for CIPL, congratulates all new officers of CIPL and especially thanks the General Assembly for the confidence they had shown in him. 

The SG reminds the GA that, in accordance with the bylaws, a new nominating committee had been appointed. The composition of the committee is: Anders Ahlqvist (chair), Tinatin Bolkvadze, Timothy Colleman and Bernhard Hurch. Substitutes: Istvan Kenesei and Shigeki Kaji.

8. Proposal to award an honorary title 

Since this meeting is the last GA of Piet van Sterkenburg, David Bradley wants to use this occasion to thank Piet for his 26 years of service. He collaborated with five presidents and did this work most of the time alongside his demanding job as head of the Institute of Dutch Lexicography. It is impossible, he said, to enumerate all the merits Piet has had for CIPL: ‘Let it be enough to say that without Piet van Sterkenburg there would not have been a CIPL anymore.’ 

Therefore, he proposes to award to Piet van Sterkenburg the title of Honorary Secretary-general. Many delegates want to second this proposal, which was accepted unanimously.

9. Any other business 

Piet van Sterkenburg asks the floor to say a few words of farewell. 

Piet thanks all the current and former delegates in CIPL for having had the honor to serve CIPL for 26 years. He had done his work with great dedication and sometimes with a lot of pleasure. He thanks CIPL for having provided him with good friends and better insights in linguistics. 

He is satisfied that he had been able to initiate and organize five ICL conferences, to stabilize the work of CIPL by providing new statutes and bylaws, and to guarantee the Linguistic Bibliography a future by setting up a foundation. He is also grateful that the initiative taken by his predecessor to focus on endangered languages could have been continued through the organization of summer schools and conferences and through the creation of the Endangered Languages Award. 

Unfortunately, the initiative to establish a CIPL chair for the study of Endangered Languages at Leiden University did not materialize. Hopefully, this will be possible in the future. Subsequently, Piet van Sterkenburg shows his great gratitude that the Nominating Committee and the General Assembly had found such a competent successor in Frieda Steurs, the second woman in this position after Christine Mohrman. He is sure that CIPL will be in good hands with her. 

Finally, he thanked everybody with whom he had cooperated in the past, especially David Bradley with whom he had worked very intensively. He also thanked the GA for awarding him the first honorary title in the 90 years of CIPL’s history. He wished CIPL and all the delegates all the best for the future. The delegates thanked Piet with a standing ovation. 

10. Closing 

The chairman closes the meeting.

Publicado: 14/11/18

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