New app created to support preservation of endangered language (fwd link)

[Phillip E Cash Cash]

*New app created to support preservation of endangered language
*
September 13, 2012 (Phys.org)—One of the world's most endangered languages
is to be brought into the digital age through the first phone app designed
specifically for the documentation of an Australian Indigenous language.

The Ma! Iwaidja (pronounced 'ee-WHY-jah') smartphone app has been developed
as part of the Minjilang Endangered Languages Publication Project. The
project team, based on Croker Island in remote Northwestern Arnhem Land,
worked with Mr Bruce Birch, a linguist from the School of Culture, History
and Language in the ANU College of Asia and the Pacific to develop the app.

The app includes a 1,500-entry English-Iwaidja dictionary with audio, a
450-entry phrase book, a 'WordMaker' allowing users to conjugate verbs and
construct short phrases, and an information section about Iwaidja and other
endangered languages of Arnhem Land.

Mr Birch said that use of the app as a reference tool was far from the
whole story. "The app also gives users the ability to record new dictionary
or phrase book entries using the on-board recording capability of their
phones, so people can customise their app by including, for example, new
phrases which are particularly useful to them.

Access full article below:
http://phys.org/news/2012-09-app-endangered-language.html
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