Dene Languages Conference

The 2005 conference will be held June 6-7 at the University of Victoria, in conjunction with the Stabilizing Indigenous Languages Symposium.

The conference program is now available.(May 20 )

Funding
A small amount of funding is available to assist with travel costs to the conference. Awards are likely to be at most Can$500 and will be handle as a reimbursement for actual expenses only. To receive a reimbursement applicants will need to submit original receipts for airline tickets, and all boarding passes. If travel is by vehicle, indicate mileage and the cost of airfare for comparison.

To apply for a travel award, send an email directly to the conference organizer at saxon@uvic.ca. Note your affiliation and status (eg., student, unemployed, etc.) and whether you intend to present a paper at the conference. Also indicate if you are a Dene speaker or heritage learner. To ensure full consideration applications should be made as soon as possible.

Registration and Program
Registration will take place on the University of Victoria campus at the beginning of the conference. The registration fee will be $30 (Canadian), or $15 (Canadian) for students or people not working. It is anticipated that there will be approximately 15 presentations during the two days of the conference. The conference program will be posted when it is available. If you have questions about registration or the program, please contact Leslie Saxon at saxon@uvic.ca or at (250) 721-7422.

Abstracts
Please send abstracts on any topic relating to Dene languages to the conference organizer at the address below. Electronic formats are preferred (.pdf or .doc files please; please test for font issues). We are expecting that the talks will last for 20 minutes with 10 minutes for discussion. We will have a digital projector available for the Dene languages conference, and other equipment should be available also. (Please specify your requirements.) The deadline for abstracts is 29 April 2005.

Housing
On-campus housing will be the cheapest, but there are many other nice places to stay in Victoria. The on-campus housing page is here: http://housing.uvic.ca/visitor/visitoraccom.php. The SILS website has information on hotels, etc also.

Location
Victoria is on Vancouver Island, Coast Salish territory, a short plane or boat trip from Seattle or Vancouver, which are on the mainland. Because of being on an island, flights can fill up fast, so please take this into account when making your travel plans. Please watch the SILS website for further information on transportation options. We are expecting perhaps 500 people for SILS, so it could be a busy place!

Proceedings
As in previous years, the Alaska Native Language Center will publish selected papers from the conference in a proceedings volume. Relevant papers not presented at the conference will also be considered for inclusion in this volume. Papers will generally be no more than 15 pages. More information regarding the proceedings will be available prior to the conference.

E-mail listserv
If you would like to receive future announcements regarding the conference, you may subscribe to the ALC-L email list.

2006 Conference
We anticipate the 2006 conference being held in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories.

Previous Conferences

The Dene Languages Conference (also known as the Athabascan Languages Conference) brings together linguists, speakers, educators and policy makers from across the Athabascan region. Over the past two decades this conference has become the principal forum in which members of geographically distant, but culturally and intellectually related, Athabascan communities can compare notes and learn from each other.

• 2003: Arcata, California
• 2002: Fairbanks, Alaska
• 2001: Los Angeles, California
• 2000: Moricetown, British Columbia

The proceedings of the 2001, 2002, and 2003 Athabaskan Languages Conferences are published in the ANLC Working Papers series. These may be ordered from ANLC by contacting (907) 474-7874 or fyanlp@uaf.edu.