Author: Cal Flyn / Source: The Next Web
In a globalized world, “global languages” have come increasingly to the fore, often at the expense of smaller, regional tongues and dialects. Of all the world’s languages — around 7,000, by best estimates — only a few hundred are represented online, and a very small number predominate.
English — long dubbed the “language of business” and latterly known as the lingua franca of the web — has seen its influence diminish, but it is still thought to account for 30 to 40 percent of all webpages on the internet. Mandarin has been steadily growing in its online presence, which impacts upon its offline influence, too; so have fellow linguistic giants Arabic, Spanish, and Russian.
But what of the languages that remain undigitized? Can smaller, culturally specific languages stay relevant in a modern age? UNESCO, the United Nations’ world heritage agency, warns that smaller languages are being crowded out — a serious cultural issue, as languages are thought to be dying at a rate of one every two months.
Here, technology may offer a possible solution. Minority groups around the world have been working hard to keep their traditional languages alive — that is, in regular use — and, in many cases, mobile apps have come to the fore as a method of increasing their use in a modern context.
“The preservation and revitalization of languages are more important than ever. In fact, we’re seeing endangered languages making a comeback,” says Darrick Baxter, a Canadian tech entrepreneur who belongs to the Ojibway people, an Indigenous group native to a large region to the north of North America’s Great Lakes. His company, the Winnipeg-based Ogoki Learning Inc., has created 140 apps, 30 of them aimed at Native American languages. Their Ojibway People and Languages has been downloaded around a million times on iPhone, iPad, Android, Windows, and Apple TV. Baxter says that the apps are popular among the younger generation but are supported by elders. “We also train staff from the tribes to update and add more words, building on those included in the app,” he adds.
Elsewhere in Canada, the First People’s Cultural Council works to help the revitalization of Indigenous language and culture in British Columbia. To this end, they have launched a range of phone apps to support the use of thirteen languages, including Ehattesaht (a language that UNESCO considers highly endangered, as it’s spoken by only 200 individuals on Vancouver Island) and Secwepemc, which has around 1,300 speakers of varying abilities in the state’s interior.
There are two apps for each language: a specialized keyboard, which allows speakers to communicate via social media, email, and text message in their native language; and a dictionary app, which allow members of First Nations communities to record or learn vocabulary — in both written and audio form — which might otherwise be forgotten.
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