Can texting help save languages? (fwd link)

[Phillip E Cash Cash]

Can texting help save languages?

Technology is seen as a way to keep young people from forsaking their
native tongues.

By Tim Johnson
McClatchy Newspapers
Posted: Sunday, Jul. 03, 2011

MEXICO CITY In southern Chile, young speakers of Huilliche, a language
that's in peril of extinction, produce hip-hop videos and post them on
the Internet.

Across the globe in the Philippines, teenagers think it's "cool" to
send mobile phone text messages in regional languages that show signs
of endangerment, such as Kapampangan.

Technology, long considered a threat to regional languages, now is
being seen as a way to keep young people from forsaking their native
tongues for dominant languages. YouTube and Facebook, as well as
Internet radio and cellphone texting, are helping minority language
groups stave off death.

Linguist Samuel Herrera said he was elated to find teenagers zapping
each other with text messages in Huave, an endangered language spoken
only by about 15,000 people in the Tehuantepec region of Mexico, along
the Pacific.

Access full article below:
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/07/03/2425077/can-texting-help-save-languages.html