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Arcadia

Arcadia serves humanity by preserving endangered cultural heritage and ecosystems.

We protect complexity and work against the entropy of ravaged and thereby starkly simplified natural environments and globalized cultures. Innovation and change occur best in already complex systems. Once memories, knowledge, skills, variety, and intricacy disappear – once the old complexities are lost – they are hard to replicate or replace. Arcadia aims to return to people both their memories and their natural surroundings. What we want to preserve remains fragile, small and dispersed. But if we do not protect it – if it vanishes forever – then future generations will have no base from which to build a vibrant, resilient, green future.

Because knowledge should belong to all, we also promote open access, seeking to make information available without barriers of cost or distance. Charities, businesses, universities, schools, the media, politicians, and citizens all benefit when research and data are no longer locked behind paywalls or reserved for those who live near their repositories. The economy benefits too from better-informed decisions, improved schooling and knowledgeable citizens, from enhanced academic research and innovation based on shared knowledge.

We do not accept applications, but seek and support organizations run by exceptional individuals, operating in a cost-effective, scientifically sound, and ethical manner that share our vision.

Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin

Funder Website

Arcadia Projects

ELDP

Documentation of Pela and Language contact between Pela and Zaiwa in lexical and syntactic borrowings

The Endangered Language Documentation Programme (ELDP) provides grants worldwide for the documentation of endangered languages and knowledge. Grantees create audiovisual colle…

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ELDP

Documentation and Grammatical Description of Opuuo

The Endangered Language Documentation Programme (ELDP) provides grants worldwide for the documentation of endangered languages and knowledge. Grantees create audiovisual colle…

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ELDP

A documentation of the Tomárâho variety of Chamacoco, a language of the Paraguayan Chaco, and research into its verbal morphosyntax.

The Endangered Language Documentation Programme (ELDP) provides grants worldwide for the documentation of endangered languages and knowledge. Grantees create audiovisual colle…

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ELDP

Documentation and Grammatical Description of the Shabo Language: A Very Endangered Isolate Language of Southwestern Ethiopia

The Endangered Language Documentation Programme (ELDP) provides grants worldwide for the documentation of endangered languages and knowledge. Grantees create audiovisual colle…

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ELDP

A pan-dialectal documentation of Wik-Ngathan and Wik-Ngatharr: Cape York Peninsula, Australia

The Endangered Language Documentation Programme (ELDP) provides grants worldwide for the documentation of endangered languages and knowledge. Grantees create audiovisual colle…

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ELDP

Documentation of Ayere, an endangered and undocumented minority language of the Nigerian Middle Belt

The Endangered Language Documentation Programme (ELDP) provides grants worldwide for the documentation of endangered languages and knowledge. Grantees create audiovisual colle…

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ELDP

Documentation of Seke (Ske) - an undescribed and endangered language of Pentecost Island, Vanuatu

The Endangered Language Documentation Programme (ELDP) provides grants worldwide for the documentation of endangered languages and knowledge. Grantees create audiovisual colle…

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ELDP

A pan-dialectal documentation of Wik-Ngatharr, Cape York Peninsula, Australia

The Endangered Language Documentation Programme (ELDP) provides grants worldwide for the documentation of endangered languages and knowledge. Grantees create audiovisual colle…

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ELDP

Kalmyk/Oirat; development of teaching materials for Kalmyk national schools; comparative studies of Kalmyk and Oirat

The Endangered Language Documentation Programme (ELDP) provides grants worldwide for the documentation of endangered languages and knowledge. Grantees create audiovisual colle…

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