Language Documentation is perhaps the primary concern of linguistics today. Within our lifetimes, many of the world's languages will go extinct with or without linguists. The various world's languages constitute the primary source of data for linguists investigating the range of complexity of human language, but the language that an individual speaks partially constitutes that individual's identity. The move to a "digital linguistics" taken together with the incredible complexities involved in successfully documenting a language opens up into larger debates about the nature of language data, and ultimately language, itself. Through my work at the LINGUIST List, I have been fortunate enough to be involved in the development of the cyberinfrastructure for linguistics, primarily through LL-MAP (an online tool to explore and manipulate geolinguistic documentation) and the nascent LEGO project.
Since Fall 2008 I have been studying Ojibwe. My first real exposure to the language in Dr. Verónica Grondona's Field Methods class that semester, but I am currently helping Howard Kimewon teach a free, 12-week introductory course, held at Eastern Michigan University's Student Center. It is critical for linguists to give something back to the communities they work with, and different communities will necessarily have different needs.