Technology (language)

[Peter Constable]

Nick Thieberger wrote:

> A very interesting post, that shows yet again that who pays the
> piper can play discord!
>
> I hope that list members shared my reaction of cringing at the
> imposition of inappropriate technological fixes to working with
> small languages. While the claim is that languages are 'preserved',
> this may not be the case if proper archival methods are ignored.
>
> Microsoft is not providing useful tools, but is providing its own
> tools, which tie the user into deadend proprietary solutions...

I think appropriate assessment of the article needs to consider the
context of its publication. This is published for a generic audience, not
linguists and anthropologists concerned with language and culture death.
The general public finds technology interesting, but isn't particularly
clued in about language documentation.

Were the technology tools appropriate? To answer that question we need to
look at the goals of the project: using technologies is language
*revitalization* efforts -- not language documentation. The project was
driven by members of the language community, and evidently their interest
was in the preparation of didactic materials. Were Powerpoint, Audacity
and MaxAuthor appropriate tools for that purpose? I'm not aware of any
reason to say they are not.

Note that Microsoft had no involvement in this project. Funding was
provided by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which is not connected to
Microsoft. Note that, of the three software products mentioned, only one
was a Microsoft product; one is a product from an indenpendent software
vendor, MaxView, and the other is an open-source project. Microsoft did
not provide any tools; as far as I can tell, the people within the
communities running the project selected the software products themselves.
If we consider the facts, the comment about tieing users into deadend
proprietary solutions seems to be no more then empty rhetoric.

So, did I cringe for the reasons you suggest? No, not at all. Rather, I
found your criticism to be completely unjustified, apparently a knee-jerk
reaction to seeing references to Bill Gates and a Microsoft product.

If you want to highlight the need for projects that adequately document
languages that are dying, I'm with you wholeheartedly. If you want to
criticize the author of the article for not giving adequate consideration
of what might constitute preservation in a situation like this before
using that term in the headline, I'd say you had a reasonable point.

On the other hand, if you want to criticize the organizers of this project
for not focusing more on language documentation, I'd say you're on shaky
ground, at risk of being seen as a patronizing outsider. If you want to
criticize Microsoft, I'd say you're completely unjustified and need to
re-read the article. If you want to criticize Bill and Melinda Gates, I'd
say you should look more carefully into the facts: they evidently funded
the project apparently without any requirements regarding what software to
use (and it seems to me bold to be criticizing a philanthropist who has
just announced giving another $3 billion for projects such as this).

I completely support efforts at language documentation, revitalization and
preservation. I cannot, however, support criticism of a project because
the reasonable goals of the community didn't meet the expectations of
others, or criticism of a company that was in no way involved beyond one
of their products being used.



Peter Constable
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