DIRECTORS

Anastasia Riehl is a linguist with a background in phonology (sound patterning), Austronesian languages and endangered language documentation. She has undertaken fieldwork on regional languages in Indonesia and Vanuatu and on immigrant languages in North America. She is interested in issues of language maintenance in heritage communities, minority language literacy and linguistic human rights. Anastasia holds a Ph.D in Linguistics from Cornell University and is Director of the Strathy Language Unit at Queen’s University.

Aggrey Wasike is a linguist who studies syntax (sentence structure) and languages of East Africa. He taught Swahili at Michigan Sate University and at Tianjin Normal University in China. Aggrey is working on a dictionary of his native language Bukusu and is interested in language-in-education policies and multilingualism. He holds a Ph.D. in Linguistics from Cornell University and is Assistant Professor of African Studies and African Languages at the University of Toronto.

CONTRIBUTORS

Paolo Frascà is a faculty member in the Department of Italian Studies at the University of Toronto, where he teaches courses in Italian language and culture, Italian migration to Canada, gender and sexuality. He holds a PhD in Italian Studies and Sexual Diversity Studies from the University of Toronto and has published in the areas of dialectology, language variation, minority-language documentation, and migration.

Mohamed Jaffar is a lifelong scholar of his native Sri Lanka Malay language and culture. Before immigrating to Canada in 1974, he worked in the country’s shipping industry and was a founder-member of the Alliance Française de Ceylan. In Toronto, he served as president of the Sri Lanka Malay Association from 2004-2005 and in his retirement, returned to university to study linguistics and French, earning a B.A. from York University. Mohamed is assisting ELAT with our Sri Lanka Malay documentation project.

Daniel Kaufman is a linguist who specializes in the grammatical structures of Austronesian languages. He has undertaken numerous endangered language documentation projects in Southeast Asia and in immigrant communities in New York City. Dan is the founder of the Endangered Language Alliance of New York City and a consultant for ELAT. He holds a Ph.D. in Linguistics from Cornell University and is Assistant Professor of Linguistics at Queen’s College (New York).

Monica Mak is an educational documentary filmmaker and video facilitator. Her past work has explored transcultural practices among Asian-Canadian women as well as HIV/AIDS and gender-based violence in South Africa. Monica is collaborating with ELAT on various video projects, including a short documentary about speakers struggling to preserve their heritage languages in Toronto. Monica holds a Ph.D. in Communications from McGill University.

Abdullah Sherif is a heritage speaker of Harari and an active member of the Scarborough community. At a young age, he attended Community Heritage classes and later became a Chief Coordinator. Abdullah assists ELAT with our Harari documentation project. He holds a B.A. in Environmental Studies from York University.