Language and Wellness
Doug Whalen and Alice Taff
This course provides an overview of the evidence for the connection between ancestral language use and wellness/health. This link is moderately well attested in the published literature, but those involved in language revitalization take it as a given. With better evidence, funders such as NIH are more likely to fund language programs.
The goal of the workshop is to give participants focused time to consider the issue of ancestral language use/learning and its connection to physical wellness; they can then design and implement their own projects based on the literature in this field, their workshop experience in project design, and their knowledge about credible outcomes and potential funding sources.