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Recent news and updates regarding the Endangered Languages Project

  • Friday, February 28, 2014

    Top 10 Things You Need To Know About Endangered Languages

    By Anna Luisa Daigneault

    Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages

    In honor of UNESCO International Mother Language Day (Feb. 21), I would like to bring attention to some key issues related to language loss. As the language preservation and revitalization movement grows around the world, more and more positive media attention has been given to endangered languages, which is a great step for indigenous language activists who want their languages to gain more respect and recognition. However, there are still many ongoing challenges that language activists face. I want to share this list in an effort to help the broader public become aware of the struggles involved in language revitalization, maybe dispel some of the myths surrounding endangered languages, and hopefully help people understand what is at stake when a language is lost. Without further ado, here are the top ten things you need to know about endangered languages:

    10. Since the beginning of the 20th century, minority languages have been shifting to dominant languages at an accelerated and unprecedented pace.

    It’s happening fast, especially in former settlement colonies. Language shift is happening rapidly, and the process is related to the ongoing impacts of colonization, cultural assimilation, urbanization and globalization. When there is a contraction of local diversity, it leads to cultural erosion, the loss of minority languages, and can even lead to the loss of cultural identity over time.

    9. Up to half of the world’s 7105 languages may be at risk of disappearing

    Several thousand languages are currently experiencing some level of threat. It is important to note that not only are many individual languages at risk, but entire languages families are also going extinct, which is an incomparable loss for humanity.

    In terms of assessing individual language endangerment, you can’t always tell if the language is stable based on the number of speakers alone. Sometimes languages still have very large speaker populations, but if the average age of speaker is over 50, that is an indicator that the language is not being passed down to children. The language is therefore not stable, and the number of fluent speakers will soon dwindle. The language might be lost in only a generation or two. In other cases, the numbers of speakers of a language might be low, but if there are enough speakers of all age groups, then the language is still being transmitted to the youngest members of the community, and the language may still survive for many generations to come.

    8. Many endangered languages have never been recorded, and have never been written down.

    It’s true. There are many languages out there that have no audio recordings. Having high-quality audio recordings of words and phrases in a language are an essential tool for a community that does not have many fluent speakers left, and wishes to preserve the correct pronunciation of the language after the last speakers have passed on, if that is the eventual end to the process of shift their community is experiencing. The next few decades constitute a crucial period for recording the last speakers of the most critically endangered languages, and for supporting local indigenous language activists who are doing great work reviving relatively less endangered, or threatened languages, in their communities. High-quality recordings are also essential for linguists who wish to analyze the sounds and structure of a language, and assist communities in developing language materials suitable for language transmission.

    Furthermore, many cultures have passed on their legacy through oral traditions, and did not rely on writing systems for knowledge transmission. However, the need for a suitable orthography arises when speakers wish their languages to be taught in schools, have a presence in the media, and be recognized by state authorities. In some cases, if the writing system is created too hastily, it might not accurately capture the complex sounds found in that language. The best writing systems are created when fluent speakers work with fluent educators and other specialists, and they all take the time to create a writing system that works well for the community’s, and can also be readily used on modern computer interfaces. The creation of good writing systems, and the accompanying technology to accommodate special characters, requires time, diligence, patience, coordination and money to pay people to work on the projects.

    7. Language loss is happening in nearly every country in the world.

    It’s happening near you. With the exception of monolingual countries such as Uruguay (where many indigenous languages were eradicated), Korea, and a handful of other countries, you can observe languages loss in most countries in the world. If you live in Canada, the United States, or Australia, you may be surprised to find out that language loss is not an exotic phenomenon, but also a local one. Many of the First Nations, Native American, and Aboriginal languages that you have heard of are in danger of disappearing, unless the speakers have the necessary resources and infrastructure in place to keep their languages alive. In the case of Europe, there are also many local minority languages in various regions that are at risk of being lost.

    While there are threatened languages in almost every country, it is important to note language shift is not evenly distributed across the world, and one can identify Language Hotspots, which are concentrated regions of the world having the highest level of linguistic diversity, the highest levels of endangerment, and the least-studied languages. The Language Hotspots are places in where language documentation is urgently needed in this current generation.

    http://www.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/langhotspots/features.html

    6. Minority languages are an important part of humanity’s intangible cultural heritage.

    In our diverse and multilingual world, languages are a source of cultural wealth. Shaped by the places in which they are rooted, the world’s minority languages encode valuable knowledge systems related to people’s cultural adaptation to the local landscapes. Intimately connected to ecological diversity, these diverse local languages are storehouses of taxonomies and environmental knowledge accumulated over generations. Language extinction can also lead to the disappearance of ancient spiritual traditions. Practices once performed in the language might no longer exist the same way as before, and therefore language maintenance is also necessary to keep spiritual traditions intact.

    5. Indigenous language activists and professional language allies often toil in obscurity, for little or no pay.

    Indigenous language activists are speakers who spearhead local efforts to conserve their languages. They may be involved in teaching children and adults to speak the language, recording the elders’ knowledge, organizing workshops, cultural events, etc. They are often under-recognized by their community, and depending on the circumstances, they work for little to no pay. Of course, there are also many communities out there where the language activists and educators are well compensated for their efforts, so it really depends on the local situation. Language activism is a full-time job. If the activists are toiling with no wages, they deserve to be compensated.

    Professional languages allies are usually researchers, linguists and other media or NGO professionals who use their skills and background to assist activists in conserving their languages. In many cases, these people are also volunteering their time, and not being paid for the time they put into the language projects. Securing funding for language documentation projects is very difficult and can be problematic since it can't be guaranteed from year to year.

    4. Language documentation is tedious but fascinating work.

    A proper scientific documentation of a language takes many years to accomplish and the best documentation projects involve meaningful collaboration with fluent speakers and other concerned members of the community. The process is always further enhanced when there is participation from multiple trained linguists who each can contribute their expertise.

    3. Language revitalization programs are life-long projects.

    Doing a language revitalization project is not just a summertime internship project. True revitalization is only possible with long-term commitment from speakers, educators and language activists within the community. Linguists don't save or maintain indigenous languages, and there is no simple path to revitalization for communities.

    2. The Internet is not killing minority languages.

    There is a popular misconception that the Internet, as a powerful tentacle of globalization, is contributing to the demise of minority languages. However, the opposite is true. The Internet provides an unprecedented opportunity for minority voices to be heard, thanks to citizen media. Furthermore, online language-learning tools not only help create visibility for minority languages on the Web, but also help speakers share their knowledge and maintain networks over large distances.

    1. Digital technology will never replace a living community of speakers, but it can help preserve and teach languages, as well as connect speakers.

    Innovations in audio and video recording technology help preserve recordings, can serve as a learning aid, and connect people to other speakers of their language who may not live in the same location. Endangered language communities can now create virtual spaces where speakers can go to listen to their language, no matter where they are in the world. Apps, social networks, blogs and language forums are a great tool for enhancing and facilitating communication, but of course cannot and do not replace the speakers themselves.

    Thanks for reading. Feel free to share the article!

    Check out our Endangered Language Resource Page, which lists many ongoing documentation efforts going on around the world. The information on the page is organized according to Language Hotspots, which are concentrated regions of the world having the highest level of linguistic diversity, the highest levels of endangerment, and the least-studied languages.

    http://livingtongues.wordpress.com/resource-page/

    -----------
    Anna Luisa Daigneault is Development Officer & Latin America Projects Coordinator at Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages. 

  • Tuesday, February 18, 2014

    Tweet in Your Mother Language on February 21

    (Modified version from original posted on the Rising Voices blog)


    In recognition of International Mother Language Day (IMLD), please join us along with Rising Voices, The Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages and Indigenous Tweets to help us commemorate this day through a Twitter campaign to highlight those already tweeting, and encourage more people to tweet in their mother language.

    Here is how you can participate:

    1.) On Friday, February 21, tweet in your mother language about why it's important to use your mother tongue

    2.) You may also want to follow that tweet with a translation so that more people following along can read your message

    3.) Important: add the following hashtags to your tweet:
    #imld14 (International Mother Language Day 2014)
    #(the name of the language you are writing in), for example #cherokee #bambara #xhosa

    4.) Follow along the hashtag #imld14 to see messages from around the world and retweet to help amplify their messages. You may also wish to follow along the hashtag of your language to connect with others that you may not already know

    5.) Help someone else get started on Twitter by assisting them to sign up for an account so that they can begin tweeting

  • Wednesday, February 5, 2014

    CIDLeS Summer School
    Originally published on the CIDLeS blog
    Contributors: Peter Bouda and Vera Ferreira

    August 11-15th—The Centro Interdisciplinar de Documentação Linguística e Social will organize another summer school in Minde (Portugal), dedicated to the topic "Coding for Language Communities" (CLC 2014). 
    There are currently around 7000 languages spoken all over the world - but each month a language dies. In general we see a strong tendency to learn and use only the major languages such as English, German, French, etc., especially in electronic communication. CLC 2014 is about ongoing research and development to turn that process in exactly the other direction: every successful technology can also be used to teach, revitalize and therefore boost the use of regional languages. This technology should also assist the renewal of local languages and cultures by allowing people to actively teach, learn, extend, and spread their language in their community.

    During an exciting and exhausting week we will work together to develop software and tools for under-resourced languages.

    Deadline for applications is May 31st, 2014.

    Learn more about CLC 2014 here:

    http://www.cidles.eu/blog/coding-for-language-communities-clc-2014/

  • Tuesday, December 17, 2013

    Our New Featured Languages: When Endangerment Meets Revitalization
    Hawaiian (Ōlelo Hawaiʻi) is a Polynesian language (belonging to the larger Austronesian language family) spoken in the Hawaiian islands. Estimates of numbers of speakers vary greatly. It is generally thought that there are about 1,000 first-language speakers of Hawaiian, many of them associated with Ni‘ihau island where the language remains in active use. It is estimated that there are around 5,000 speakers of Hawaiian, where over 3,000 are second-language speakers who learned the language through language revitalization programs and formal instruction. Hawaiian is one of the most successful cases of language revitalization, where today there are many more speakers than a generation ago.

    Shoshone (also called Shoshoni) belongs to the Numic branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family. There are about 1,000 fully fluent speakers and perhaps another 1,000 with more restricted competence. A few children still learn the language at home in Duck Valley and Goshute communities, but most speakers are over 50. Shoshone speakers are found in a number of reservations and communities in the Great Basin. Nearly all of the nine Shoshone bands/tribes in southern Idaho, Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming are engaged in school- or community-based revitalization efforts, or in both. There are Shoshone language projects at two universities, Idaho State University and the University of Utah. The SYLAP (Shoshone Youth Language Apprenticeship Program) is an extremely successful and innovative youth-oriented language and culture revitalization program.

    Pipil (Nawat, Nahuate). Nawat (Nahuate) or Pipil in El Salvador is a language of the Nahua (Aztecan) branch of the Uto-Aztecan family. Though critically endangered, with fewer than 200 first-language speakers, Pipil has groups very dedicated to language revival. These groups are actively producing teaching and learning materials and resources of various sorts, and many of them participate enthusiastically in the Nawat Wikipedia and the Facebook Group "Salvemos el Idioma Náhuat." Additionally, there is instruction in the language at several schools in the Pipil area.

  • Friday, November 15, 2013

    Q&A with Volunteer Outreach Ambassador, Geoff Anderson
    Photo credit: Miromaa Language and Technology Centre. Newcastle, Australia

    Q&A with Geoff Anderson – Endangered Languages Project Community Outreach Ambassador

     Q: How did you hear about ELP? 

     A:  I remember hearing about the website about 14 months ago at an ESL group meeting.

     Q: What was your first impression of ELP? 

     A:  I wasn't sure about the site when I first heard about it, not knowing or wanting to risk doing something wrong with our language by putting it online but now I'm there as much as I can be. To get ideas from fellow language workers is one thing but to get ideas and see what’s happening in other areas of the world is just brilliant.

     Q: Describe your role as a caretaker for the Wiradjuri Endangered Languages Project page.

     A:  I was given permission by Elder Stan Grant Senior to take the role of ‘caretaker’ to look at Wiradjuri material being contributed on the site. I go on the page a couple of times a week to review materials and to ensure that nothing is put down about any of the Elders without permission. 

     Q: What do you do when you aren’t volunteering for ELP?

     A:  I am a language coordinator for the Wiradjuri language in Parkes, NSW, Australia. I started teaching the language in one school first and then progressed through the rest of the public schools. We are now teaching the Wiradjuri language in four public schools in town and we teach 1000 students per week. I’m not a qualified linguist, I'm more of an activist for language. I also run a community language group for anybody who wants to come to learn language or even just talk about language.
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