30th Annual Congress of the Foundation for Endangered Languages, FEL XXX (2026)

The Foundation for Endangered Languages (FEL), CESSMA (Centre for Social Science Studies on the African, American and Asian Worlds) and INALCO invite you to the 30th FEL Annual Conference at INALCO, Paris, France, from 3 to 5 November 2026.
Ecritures orientales
Ecritures orientales © Inalco‎

Conference theme 

Endangered languages and innovative technologies: documentation, processing and revitalisation 

Whilst an increasing number of languages around the world are threatened with extinction, due to the acceleration of linguistic change and the growing dominance of economically or politically dominant and prestigious languages, language communities and researchers are striving to reverse this trend in order to prevent the disappearance of languages. As part of these efforts, they are turning their attention to new technologies and their various applications, as well as their potential to improve documentation and support the revitalisation of endangered languages.

As documentation is no longer the only option – since it merely aims to provide a snapshot of a language at a given point in time – other, potentially more effective options and approaches, such as the prevention, preservation and promotion of endangered languages, are gaining in importance. Ultimately, revitalisation – the ultimate goal for endangered languages – requires new and more powerful technologies and tools to succeed. Digital technologies can provide valuable tools for teaching, recording and sharing languages, as well as for creating metadata that can be used creatively in research and educational contexts.

Today, many innovative digital technologies and systems are largely designed and operate on the basis of data derived from a small number of dominant and well-documented languages. As a result, many communities – particularly those whose languages are endangered, predominantly spoken or under-documented – remain excluded from what is known as the digital sphere. This exclusion is not merely a deprivation of, or lack of access to, technological tools, systems or infrastructure, but stems from the dominance of official languages over less well-resourced linguistic communities. Such dominance has direct consequences for linguistic and cultural transmission, access to new technologies, and linguistic rights.

Many communities around the world are rising to the challenge and actively working to recover, preserve and revitalise their languages. In this process, attempts are sometimes made to use digital tools and technologies, which have the potential to support documentation, learning and transmission. However, these tools often fail to effectively meet the needs of endangered language communities and may, on the contrary, impose assumptions and models derived from dominant languages.

Whilst digital technologies can be powerful tools in the fight against language endangerment, they can be more effective if developed in collaboration with language communities, with full respect for their knowledge, priorities and data sovereignty.

This conference, the thirtieth organised by the Foundation for Endangered Languages (FEL), in collaboration with CESSMA and INALCO, places communities at the heart of the debate. It explores how innovative technologies can support linguistic documentation and strengthen revitalisation, and, conversely, how community knowledge and linguistic diversity can redefine the design, evaluation and purpose of digital systems themselves, thereby contributing to a more sustainable and effective response to the threat facing languages. 

A major challenge for preservation and revitalisation remains the persistent bottleneck in documentation. There are vast collections of recordings for many endangered languages, but only a small proportion have been transcribed, annotated or made available to communities for revitalisation purposes. This does not reflect a lack of effort, but rather structural realities and challenges: documentation is time-consuming, requires close collaboration with speakers and often takes place in contexts where literacy practices differ or where knowledge is culturally sensitive.

At the same time, current technological approaches and tools rely heavily on large, standardised datasets, which are rarely available for endangered languages. New technologies have the potential to address issues relating to transcription and annotation, data collection and analysis, as well as the promotion and dissemination of cultural and linguistic models and practices, provided they are made accessible to communities and community-based organisations through training and collaborative partnerships.

In this context, the challenge facing endangered languages should not simply be viewed as a ‘resource-constrained’ problem to be solved. They can become areas of innovation that challenge the dominant assumptions underpinning technological development and encourage the exploration of technologies that are more flexible, more interpretable and culturally grounded. By highlighting community perspectives and lived experiences, the conference aims to explore how innovative technologies can support and sustain language revitalisation. It also seeks to demonstrate how communities’ initiatives, experiences and achievements can offer new perspectives and approaches to emerging technologies, such as AI, and transform them into tools that are more relevant for the promotion and revitalisation of endangered languages.

The conference therefore aims to build a bridge between three interdependent dimensions: technology, documentation and revitalisation, both in practice and in the development of future tools and approaches.

We invite contributions that address, but are not limited to, the following issues exploring the application of innovative technologies in community-led documentation efforts and revitalisation initiatives:

  • How can innovative technologies improve transcription, annotation and corpus building in the documentation of endangered languages (ELs)?
  • How can we ensure ethical data practices and data sovereignty when applying new technological tools to endangered languages?
  • How can archiving practices be aligned with the needs and values of communities, and what role can AI systems play in this process?
  • How can new language technologies be acquired, adopted and utilised for the transmission of endangered languages?
  • How can we plan and co-design language technologies with speaker communities?
  • How can we define and design community training, capacity-building and knowledge transfer using digital tools to enable the implementation of community-led revitalisation projects?
  • What success stories and case studies can be identified in the application of new technologies to the process of revitalising indigenous languages?
  • What are the risks, limitations and unintended consequences of existing or emerging technological tools in the field of language revitalisation?

The conference aims to create a space for dialogue between researchers, technologists and, above all, the language communities themselves, addressing the opportunities and challenges presented by innovative technologies in efforts to prevent language loss and promote the preservation and revitalisation of endangered languages.

We strongly encourage submissions from community members, educators, campaigners and practitioners, as well as presentations of collaborative work between academic and non-academic partners.

Contact – View e-mail

Key dates 

  • 19 July 2026: deadline for abstract submissions
  • 20 July 2026: registration opens
  • 1 August 2026: notification to selected candidates
  • 15 September 2026: deadline for submission of full versions of accepted abstracts
  • 3–5 November 2026: conference dates
  • 6 November 2026: excursion (to be confirmed)

Submissions and practical information

We invite you to submit abstracts of between 500 and 700 words (excluding references) via EasyChair at the following address: 
https://easychair.org/my/conference?conf=felxxx2026 by the deadline of 10 July at 23:59 GMT.

Abstracts must be written in English and submitted in PDF format.

Please note that abstracts in Word format cannot be accepted and must not be submitted by email.

Abstracts must describe completed or ongoing work. The final volume of proceedings will contain original and unpublished work. The abstract must include keywords.

It must state the name(s) of the author(s). References must be included if this helps to situate the work in relation to that of others.

You must disclose any use of AI tools in the preparation of your abstract and paper. You must state at the end of your paper the AI software or tool used, the version of that software and the exact nature of its use. Failure to comply with this requirement may result in the disqualification of your paper.

Authors whose abstracts have been accepted for presentation at the conference will be notified before 1 August and must expand their abstract into a conference paper of 2,000 to 3,000 words (excluding references) by 15 September.

Conference papers will be published in the conference proceedings, which will be made available to conference participants and members of the Foundation for Endangered Languages.

A selection of papers from the conference will be published after the event as part of the ‘Endangered Languages Yearbook’ series, edited by De Gruyter Brill.

Further information

ORGANISING INSTITUTIONS

FEL Organising Committee

  • Hakim Elnazarov (chair)
  • Eda Derhemi
  • Steven Krauwer
  • Salem Mezhoud
  • Christopher Moseley
  • Mujahid Torwali

INALCO Organising Committee

  • Abdul-Hakim Hamidi (CESSMA) (chair) - View e-mail 
  • Marie Chosson (CESSMA)
  • Johanna Cordova (ERTIM)
  • Hélène de Penanros (SeDyL)
  • Anaid Donabedian- Demopoulos (SeDyL)
  • Valentina Fedchenko (ERTIM)
  • Marie-Caroline Saglio-Yatzimirsky (CESSMA)
  • Rima Sleiman (Vice-President for Research)
  • Il-Il Yatziv-Malibert (CERMOM)