Survey of Native American / First Nations language use on Facebook

[Julia Sallabank]

We have a Facebook page for learners of our language which is a 'safe
place' where they can express themselves in whatever spelling they like,
without fear of criticism by purists.

Mostly they just talk about the weather though.

Yours

Julia

On 23 September 2014 16:49, BSantaMaria <bernisantamaria at gmail.com> wrote:

> I've seen some Apaches from White Mountain and San Carlos reservations
> posting sentences in Apache on FB to each other; the problem is that most
> fluent speakers of Apache are not literate in it and they often spell the
> words from an English-speaker version, not using the alphabet correctly as
> established by well-known anthropoligists/linguists for Apache (& Navajo)
> languages. They just spell the word the way they think it sounds which
> creates obstacles for people to learn the correct spellings and I agree
> with another person on this post that stated that it's not very effective
> to learn this way and they might learn just a few basic phrases and words
> (misspelled). The few that understand what they are attempting to say are
> fluent and literate speakers of Apache who are not learners.
>
> On Tue, Sep 23, 2014 at 8:25 AM, Julia Sallabank <js72 at soas.ac.uk> wrote:
>
>> One of my students told me there is a way to post audioclips on Facebook
>> using a website called 'Vocaroo' (which I had never heard of before):
>> http://vocaroo.com/
>> Recordings are made there and then the link is posted on the Facebook
>> page.
>> The student commented: "While I think this is a good strategy adopted by
>> the learners, it also is slightly problematic because I'm not sure exactly
>> what happens to recordings made on Vocaroo in the long-term. It seems
>> prudent to me to try and keep learners' production somewhere a bit safer as
>> well, especially since these recordings might conceivably constitute
>> valuable data for studies of language change."
>>
>>
>> On 23 September 2014 16:18, Wayne Leman <wleman1949b at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>   I have often wished that it would make it easier for indigenous
>>> languages to be use orally on Facebook. There are many speakers of
>>> indigenous languages, including in the Americas, whose primary use of their
>>> language is oral rather than literate. Facebook does not permit mp3 files
>>> to be posted. It would help oral communication on Facebook if they could
>>> be. Of course, it would help most if there were some easy method of
>>> chatting orally in indigenous languages on Facebook. Maybe there already
>>> is, but I have often checked and the closest thing I have found is video
>>> chat. And video chat takes a lot of bandwidth. I don't think there is group
>>> video chat yet on Facebook.
>>>
>>> Wayne
>>>  -----
>>> http://www.cheyennelanguage.org/
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Dr. Julia Sallabank
>> Senior Lecturer in Language Support and Revitalisation, Endangered
>> Languages Academic Programme;
>> Convenor, MA Linguistics and MA Language Documentation and Description,
>> Department of Linguistics,
>> SOAS, University of London,
>> Thornhaugh Street
>> London WC1H 0XG
>> UK
>>
>> Tel. +44 (0)20 7898 4326
>> E-mail  js72 at soas.ac.uk
>>
>> *Click here to listen to my interview on 'New Books in Language*':
>> http://newbooksinlanguage.com/2014/08/10/julia-sallabank-attitudes-to-endangered-languages-identities-and-policies-cambridge-up-2013/
>>
>>
>
>


-- 
Dr. Julia Sallabank
Senior Lecturer in Language Support and Revitalisation, Endangered
Languages Academic Programme;
Convenor, MA Linguistics and MA Language Documentation and Description,
Department of Linguistics,
SOAS, University of London,
Thornhaugh Street
London WC1H 0XG
UK

Tel. +44 (0)20 7898 4326
E-mail  js72 at soas.ac.uk

*Click here to listen to my interview on 'New Books in Language*':
http://newbooksinlanguage.com/2014/08/10/julia-sallabank-attitudes-to-endangered-languages-identities-and-policies-cambridge-up-2013/
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