Research Paper on Web Sites for Endangered Languages

[Jeffrey Kopp]

Detailed and thoughtful recent study of the emergence of endangered
language Web sites.    Bears out my personal observation that most
sites to appear yet are hobby or "labor of love" endeavors, and that
institutional or tribal efforts are still getting off the ground.

"CAN THE WEB HELP SAVE MY LANGUAGE?" by Laura Buszard-Welcher,
University of California, Berkeley (undated, uploaded 6/13/00)

Includes tables and footnotes.

http://www.potawatomilang.org/Reference/endlgsweb4.htm

Interesting quote:

"Looking at the data first by developer type, we find that 38% of the
50 Web sites are maintained by groups. Of these, only 4 are official
tribal sites. Since many tribes have their own Web site, one might
expect to find lots of official tribal sites with language pages, but
this did not bear out. In fact, over half of the sites in the sample
(52%) are developed and maintained by individuals. This is
surprising, since it takes a lot of time to develop and maintain any
sizeable Web site, and many of these people must be working on their
site in their spare time, for free. While it is exciting to see such
dedication, this can also pose problems for both the individual
developer and site users, as will be discussed below.

"Looking at the sites again based on developer affiliation, we find
that less than half of the sample (48%) are developed by individuals
or organizations that are either tribal or are affiliated with a
tribe. This means that in many cases, tribes will have less say about
the kind of content and access on language Web sites. While this
leaves the door open to potential conflicts, for the most part, the
content providers who post substantial amounts of previously
unpublished language materials are usually either working closely
with tribal members, or are tribal members themselves—that is, in
some way answerable to the tribal community."

But, more encouraging:

"Content with a community-building function is the type that occurs
with the highest frequency on endangered language web sites (21 sites
or 42%). This includes information on the developer’s organization,
sets of links to other sites, and webrings."

And:

"Nine sites (18%) have teaching materials. These include short
language lessons, guides to pronunciation (one with sound files) and
games. While in many cases sites are used as repositories of language
information, these materials indicate that site developers are
exploring the possibilities of the Web as a language
transmission/teaching tool."

Regards,

Jeffrey Kopp