About CoLang

Since 2008, CoLang, the Institute on Collaborative Language Research (originally, InField, the Institute on Field Linguistics and Language Documentation) has grown to become a leading, internationally recognized training institute. Bringing together experts in language documentation and language revitalization, community leaders, students and community stakeholders, CoLang offers workshops and practica focused on training in the latest language documentation techniques and collaborative practices. 

History and overview

Hosted at different universities throughout the United States, CoLang has taken place every two years, drawing participants and instructors from around the world, including Aotearoa / New Zealand, Australia, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Costa Rica, Japan, Portugal, France, and the United States. 

A multi-week institute, the first part consists of two weeks of workshops on topics like community archiving, linguistics, audio and video recording, software usage and application, language teaching and activism. The workshops are followed by a language documentation practicum, where participants work intensively with speakers of a language.

CoLang 2026 offers hands-on and theoretical training opportunities with the aim of contributing to practice and theory. Participants emerge with a stronger set of practical skills for doing language work, such as documentation, teaching and resource development. Participants also emerge with knowledge of broader theoretical frameworks in linguistics, anthropology, Indigenous studies and education that provide intellectual grounding for the practical work. Through in-depth engagement with both theory and practice, as well as meaningful exchange of knowledge, skills and perspectives, CoLang enriches both community-based language efforts and scholars working in conventional academic settings.

One of the features that makes CoLang distinct as a language training institute is the strong sense of continuity (in that different iterations of CoLang share common goals, governing principles and structure) while at the same time reflecting the communities and character of the place in which the institute is hosted. We offer to the communities in the region a variety of opportunities to be involved at a level that feels appropriate for each community, based on the interests, needs and priorities of those communities.

We at the University of Nevada, Reno are proud to join the list of academic institutions that have hosted CoLang since 2008: University of California, Santa Barbara (2008); University of Oregon (2010); University of Kansas (2012); University of Texas at Arlington (2014); University of Alaska, Fairbanks (2016); University of Florida (2018); University of Montana (2022–postponed from 2020 as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic); and Arizona State University (2024).

Collaboration

Collaboration is a cornerstone of CoLang, and this helps ensure that language communities and the academy mutually benefit from the intellectual work with which participants engage. Because CoLang attracts facilitators and students from a variety of disciplines and with different types of investments in language work, the network they build at CoLang helps foster the sharing of knowledge, skills and best practices across many different communities that would likely not have other opportunities for this type of engagement. 

By bringing together workshop and practica facilitators from a wide variety of backgrounds, including scholars at the leading edge of their fields, language activists whose work directly impacts communities and tribal members who are leaders in their communities’ language reclamation efforts, CoLang offers participants a unique training opportunity, distinct from those provided through university coursework or conferences. Facilitators and students at different stages in their careers, from different backgrounds and coming with a different set of experiences with language, engage in the co-creation of knowledge both formally in the educational activities of the program and more informally through shared meals, participation in cultural activities, and impromptu and organized social events.

Facilitators are conscientious about presenting technical information in ways that are accessible to a diversity of audiences. In addition, given that emerging academics are trained in collaborative work, student participation in CoLang also supports enriched relationships between universities and Indigenous communities, as students trained in CoLang approach their documentary and analytic work through more community-oriented frameworks.

Productivity

CoLang participants take the knowledge and skills that they acquire at the institute and produce a wide variety of materials, such as dissertations, academic publications and presentations, and cultural and pedagogical materials for communities, that shape fields such as linguistics, Indigenous studies, anthropology and education.

Many applicants seeking grants for language documentation activities speak of CoLang as the place where they received or will receive well-rounded training in documentation that takes the community perspective into account. Furthermore, while the first few institutes saw largely graduate student and faculty participation, the more recent CoLang institutes have seen increasing participation of undergraduate students and community language workers, including from members of a wide variety of Indigenous communities. This speaks to the growing importance of language documentation and collaboration skills as a part of basic training in linguistics and language work, and to CoLang’s reputation as a leading provider of training in this area.