Last words? Phone app bids to save dying aboriginal language (fwd link)

[Phillip E Cash Cash]

*Last words? Phone app bids to save dying aboriginal language*

By Naomi Canton, for CNN
updated 12:18 PM EST, Mon November 12, 2012
AUS

(CNN) -- A smartphone app has been launched to help save an Australian
indigenous language that is in danger of disappearing.

Its creators say the The Ma! Iwaidja free mobile phone app is the first
phone app for an Australian indigenous language and aims to prevent the
extinction of the Iwaidja language -- one of Australia's 100 endangered
languages. It is spoken by less than 200 people on Croker Island, off the
coast of the Northern Territory of Australia.

The app contains a 1,500-entry Iwaidja-English dictionary and a 450-entry
phrase book that users can update.

"There has been an enthusiastic uptake of mobile phone technology in
indigenous communities in Australia, so the idea is to capitalize on that,"
says linguist Bruce Birch, coordinator of the Minjilang Endangered
Languages Publication project, which developed the app.

Access full article below:
http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/12/tech/mobile/australia-smartphone-dying-language/index.html
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