What is this?
Great question! First and foremost, this website aims to be a hub for looking into resources on Siouan and Caddoan languages, as well as to be used to keep track of information on the annual SCLC. The hope is that back-cataloging of handouts and presentations can be included on here, as well as provide webspace for future SCLC proceedings, plus conference handouts and presentations with the authors' permission. New publications or language efforts dealing with Siouan or Caddoan languages will also appear here.
Why now?
Over the years, there have been a number of ways through which Siouanists and Caddoanists have kept in contact. The oldest consistently-running method of communication is the Siouan Languages Mailing List. This listserv has been in use since August 31, 1998, when John Koontz sent out a test email, and is currently hosted by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. A Facebook group recently coalesced after the 37th SCLC in Joplin, MO in 2017.
Recent discussion on the Siouan List points to the fact that moving the Siouan List to a Google Group might help solve some issues of accessibility with the listserv, as well as mitigate the issue of certain people not having Facebook accounts. A Google Group would also maintain an archive of discussion, as the Siouan List ceased being archived in October 2014.
Whither SCLC?
The need to attract new scholars to study Siouan and Caddoan languages ultimately involves maximizing access to content and content creators. There is no central location for someone beginning a search into a particular Siouan or Caddoan language, nor is there a public record of what has been presented on at SCLC except for various postings to listservs or websites hosted by institutions that will likely change how online content is organized in the future, rendering all those websites defunct. The lack of proceedings published minimizes the scholarly footprint of the word done within Siouanist and Caddoanist communities, so this website aspires to ameliorate this lack of a permanent home for Siouan and Caddoan content to be made available.
The following next steps need to be taken:
- Once that Google Group has been created, a link will be included here.
- At SCLC 38 in Chicago, we should discuss assembling a proceedings.
- SCLC 38 handouts and presentations should be uploaded here with the permission of the authors.
- A request to previous presenters to submit any handouts, presentations, papers, and other materials created for past SCLCs to start making prior research available to the public.
- Make tribal educational institutions (schools, colleges, language programs, etc.) aware of this site and its resources, and then request any materials they wish to contribute and provide any resources present here to them in order to help pool resources together and show our commitment to repatriating linguistic data back to their community of origin.
- Create an online bibliography of Siouan and Caddoan publications with links to JSTOR, Springer, or other online repositories where available.
This is a lot to do, but if SCLC is to continue to stay relevant and vibrant, more people need to feel empowered to work on these languages. More information to come in the near future.