Question on assessing technology for endangered language communities

[Troy Anderson]

Kele Kiu!  Ayu gusdic domiRis!
Great thread!  /me has learned all sorts of things!
I would add the following for Milluk's case (technically not endangered since Milluk's last native speaker was my great-great-grandmother who died in 1961).  Tech, for me, drives language learning and exploration. Whether working on grammatical issues, coining new terms for the Coquille Tribe, developing the Milluk font, or a myriad other uses, tech rules!   Milluk and tech are so entwined probably because I am so entwined with the two, they seem inextricable to me.  Various linguists have done work on Milluk without the tech help, but I don't know how I could function without it.  That said, I am still using my dark ages 1987 Word Cruncher program in DOS to do my explorations (feel free to suggest how to upgrade to something better!).   That all said, teaching my daughters (wow, powerful Myaamia video... inspirational) Milluk is proving to be only partly tech aided.

My advice to endangered language communities is to gather everything you can but do so smartly.  While I share the rather dubious distinction of having studied linguistics with John McWhorter at Stanford, I do not share his pessimism reflected in the other thread.  There's so much we cannot ask a Milluk speaker.  If tech helps, do it, but for ____-sake don't you dare not start something with an elder because the tech isn't handy or affordable.  Harrington, Jacobs, Dorsey, Frachtenberg, Swadesh are my constant companions... but would much prefer my great-great-grandmother.






________________________________
From: Keola Donaghy <donaghy at HAWAII.EDU>
To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU
Sent: Tue, November 3, 2009 5:22:20 PM
Subject: Re: [ILAT] Question on assessing technology for endangered language communities

Aloha kakou. I'm sensing at least three different very different topics coming together in this thread:

1) use of technology to teach language
2) the use of technology to document languages

and now

3) the use of technology IN the language, or more specifically, in an immersion environment.

I'm not an immersion graduate but have taught tech classes to both students and teachers in our Hawaiian immersion schools, and had a daughter go through 14 years of immersion (preschool-12), now in high school. Being an immersion environment, technology is not used specifically to teach language, but is used in as many contexts as I have ever seen in a non-immersion setting - students are doing powerpoint, video recording and editing, producing print materials, audio recording all through the medium of Hawaiian. The Ni'ihau school on Kaua'i has a recording studio with a radio program that the students themselves produce:
 
http://www.kauaiworld.com/articles/2008/12/05/education/doc4938eb1220c5b696686550.txt

Regarding science and technology classes, they are challenging in Hawaiian as well as much of the terminology is relatively new, but a lot of it depends on the fluency of the teacher and their familiarity with the terminology and material. Even for the technology, there are very specific ways of expressing certain actions, for example, "go to the file menu, scroll down to 'export' and select 'TIFF' from the pop-out menu that appears." If there is a lack of consistency in expressing these kinds of things it will hamper the student's progress in picking up the technology. 

I agree with this Maori student about the value of music in language instruction in the immersion environment. I've done some fieldwork in one of the Punana Leo preschools and wrote a paper (still in progress) on their use of music to aid in language acquisition at the preschool level. 

Keola


On 2009 Now. 3, at 14:55, Richard Zane Smith wrote:

Most here are convinced our computer technology is fabulous for material collection and storage....and as a skilled tool.it can be used deftly by a committed community
>but we haven't really heard from many students who were raised in immersion programs.
>I was recently in New Zealand for a few weeks and visited a "nest school"
>a Maori immersion school in Whangarei on the North Island. The young man showing me around was a sharp young high school student who had been reared there, and was donating some of his time to help out and to "give back" helping out with the pre-schoolers.
>He told me one of the greatest aides in learning the language for him were songs.
>But I can ask him about the use of computer technology as well?
>Maoris are ahead of many of us by decades and are powerfully grounded people. 
>He felt the Maori science classes were VERY difficult since new terms and concepts are endless and could only go so far in the Maori language.
>While coming and going he was greeting and speaking to students casually in Maori and introduced me to the elder behind the efforts to start the school.She gave me great encouragement as i shared with her the difficulties we are facing in the states trying to revive a dormant language(and culture) among our Wyandot nations.
>
>




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Keola Donaghy                                           
Assistant Professor of Hawaiian Studies 
Ka Haka 'Ula O Ke'elikolani             keola at leoki.uhh.hawaii.edu 
University of Hawai'i at Hilo           http://www2.hawaii.edu/~donaghy/

"Tír gan teanga, tír gan anam."  (Irish Gaelic saying)
A country without its language is a country without its soul.
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