Colang 2026 will consist of two weeks of workshops on a diversity of relevant topics. The purpose of workshops is to start or deepen understanding of holistic, collaborative language documentation processes and tools, including their linguistic, ethical, practical, and technical dimensions. The workshops take place in the first weeks of the institute, where participants will select two workshops in the morning and two in the afternoon, each of which will be 90 minutes in duration. Though some workshops in Week 2 will be a continuation of a workshop offered in Week 1, Week 2 will generally offer a different set of workshops than Week 1.
The topics of the workshops are connected to the following themes:
In addition to the standard training workshops that are typically offered at CoLang, we will solicit for workshop topics that are connected to themes relevant in particular for CoLang 2026:
★ Strengthening solidarity
★ Overcoming obstacles
★ Forging our future
The actual workshops offered in the first two weeks will be based on the accepted proposals (please see the Call for Proposals for details on submissions), though we generally expect to have workshops as outlined in the tables below. Additional workshop proposals based on your area of expertise or field experience will also be considered. You can visit CoLang’s repository for examples of previous offerings.
| Workshops | Description |
| Intro to linguistics 1, 2 | Essential concepts of linguistic structures (2 weeks) |
| Orthography | Collaboratively designing a writing system |
| Lexicography | Principles of dictionary creation and intro to special software |
| Transcription | Theory and practice of transcribing recorded data |
| Grant writing | From idea to concrete proposal; preplanning and writing |
| Workshops | Description |
| Audio 1, 2 | Basic and advanced techniques in audio recording and processing |
| Video 1, 2 | Basic and advanced techniques in video recording and processing |
| FLEx 1, 2 | Use of FLEx software for lexicography and text analysis |
| ELAN 1, 2 | Use of ELAN software for audio-visual annotation |
| Data management and archiving | Managing data through metadata, workflow, processing, corpus creation, and mobilization; intro to current software |
| Principles of database design | Design and use of a database management system |
| Workshops | Description |
| Life in communities | Ethical, practical and interpersonal aspects of research |
| Language reclamation | Language revitalization; broadening native participation in linguistic science |
| Blurring the lines | Skills for collaborative community-based research |
| Language activism | Outreach skills for the promotion of linguistic diversity |
| Survey methods | Design of sociolinguistic and language vitality surveys |
| Community archiving | Developing a community-centered archive |
| Workshops | Description |
| Teaching community languages | Designing materials for teaching language learners' grammar |
| Teaching pronunciation | Designing materials for teaching language learners' pronunciation |
| Teaching methods for community languages | Methods used for teaching languages |
| Teaching materials for community languages | Developing curricula and assessment materials for teaching languages |
| Workshops | Description |
| The role of local history and culture in language revitalization | Understanding the rationale and developing methodologies for incorporating the history and culture of a speech community in documentation, pedagogy and policy |
| Project dissemination | Discussing approaches and developing guidelines for combining different disciplines in language documentation projects, with a focus on how/where to publish the outcomes of such projects |
| Ways of knowing: language and anthropology | Introduction to specific areas of study (e.g. ethnobotany, ethnomusicology, ethnoastronomy, ethnomathematics), considering how these fields shape language documentation |
| Language and well-being | Connecting ancestral language use with health and well-being |
In addition to the workshops, the first two-week session will include other opportunities for engagement with broader ideas in the field and cultural experiences of the area, through plenaries and cultural activities. Following the examples set by previous institutes, the first two weeks of CoLang 2026 will also include the steps plenary, sharing nights and models talks.
Steps plenary
The Steps plenary, which is held on the first day, serves as an introduction to the institute and provides an overview of the process of documentation and maintenance from project conceptualization to postproduction of linguistic analysis and language learning materials.
Sharing nights
Sharing Nights are held in the evenings during the workshop weeks. Participants are invited to make five-minute presentations on their own ongoing or nascent projects, enabling them to use the collective knowledge and creativity of CoLang participants to get constructive feedback and share their ideas with those in attendance
Models talks
Models talks provide exemplars of documentation and maintenance, exposing participants to current work by scholars (Indigenous and non-Indigenous) and community members engaged in innovative and successful collaborative projects.