The MIT Indigenous Languages Initiative (MITILI) Master’s is a two year graduate program in Linguistics with a special focus on endangered languages. The goal of the program is to provide its graduates with linguistics training that will empower them to contribute to community based efforts to protect and maintain these languages.

Ken Hale, the MIT linguist and language activist who spent his life working to help endangered languages survive, recognized what is at stake when a language is under threat. Language loss hinders the mission of linguistics as a scientific discipline. The ability to analyze the full range of possible linguistic properties exhibited by the world’s languages is critical for the pursuit of one of the chief goals of linguistic inquiry: to determine what unites all human languages. Moreover, as Ken noted, “languages embody the intellectual wealth of the people who speak them”; losing any one of them is an unspeakable loss to our collective cultural and intellectual richness.

Careful linguistic work is needed in order to ensure the preservation of threatened languages. The MITILI program supports students in developing the theoretical and methodological skills necessary to make meaningful contributions to preservation efforts. This includes the conducting of traditional scholarly work, which is rooted in linguistic theory and focuses on the careful exposition of linguistic data. Beyond this foundation in linguistic theory, students may choose to design and develop pedagogical language materials and resources informed by their work on their focus language. These student directed projects will be built around needs and goals selected by the student as appropriate for the relevant linguistic context.

The MIT Indigenous Languages Initiative is centered on community and is designed to foster collaboration. Students work collaboratively with a variety of faculty as well as other students at both the undergraduate and graduate level. In addition to this, students have access to a growing network of external support from outside scholars, educators, and alumni.

Entrance Requirements

  • Expert knowledge of an indigenous or endangered language, or commitment to learning it as a second language.
  • Demonstrated ability and interest in scholarly as well as practical work in the community relating to the language.
  • Applications are encouraged from individuals who have demonstrated their ability in concrete ways recognized as valuable within the community, or who have a concrete and actionable idea for how to do so.

Program requirements

The MITILI Master’s is a two-year program, with the following requirements:

  • A MITILI student who has not completed formal coursework or its equivalent in one or more areas of formal linguistics will take 24.900 and one or more of 24.931, 24.932, and 24.933 in their first year in the program, in addition to an independent study focused on their research language. A student who has already completed coursework or its equivalent in the area covered by one or more of these classes will take a more advanced class in the same area.
  • The second year will normally be devoted to the writing of a Master’s thesis under the supervision of the student’s advisor, alongside whatever additional coursework is judged to be relevant to that project. Upon the completion of the thesis during the student’s second year, the student will be recommended for a degree of Master of Science (S.M.) in Linguistics, which will be the final degree awarded in the program.
  • Upon the completion of the first year of the Master’s program (or at any time thereafter), a MITILI student who wishes to continue graduate-level education in Linguistics beyond the Master’s level may, with the support of their advisor, request admission to the PhD program in linguistics. The successful completion of a Master’s may or may not be required as a precondition, depending on the student’s needs, desires, and progress at the time.

Student support

  • The MITILI program offers a full scholarship that covers tuition, fees and health insurance, plus a stipend, at the same level as that offered to students in the Linguistics PhD program. For more detailed information regarding the cost of attendance, including specific costs for tuition and fees, books and supplies, housing and food as well as transportation, please visit the SFS website.

Application

  • Students applying to the MITILI program follow the same application procedure as the PhD program. In the “Statement of Objectives” section of the application please state that you are applying to the MITILI program.