23.904, Disc: Re: Social Media and Endangered Languages

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LINGUIST List: Vol-23-904. Wed Feb 22 2012. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 23.904, Disc: Re: Social Media and Endangered Languages

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1)
Date: 21-Feb-2012
From: Oliver Stegen [oliver_stegen at sil.org]
Subject: Re: Social Media and Endangered Languages


-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2012 13:32:06
From: Oliver Stegen [oliver_stegen at sil.org]
Subject: Re: Social Media and Endangered Languages

E-mail this message to a friend:
http://linguistlist.org/issues/emailmessage/verification.cfm?iss=23-904.html&submissionid=4541210&topicid=5&msgnumber=1
 Great discussion topic, Roger, thanks!

While those endangered language communities which have no access to the internet will probably not benefit directly from digital tools, they can still benefit indirectly, e.g. through language documentation on YouTube.

In these times when mobile phones have penetrated to rural areas, much more is possible for indigenous language use on the web. One digital tool showing this for many under-resourced languages (granted, not many of those are also endangered) is IndigenousTweets, cf. 
http://indigenoustweets.com/.

A more individual success story may be the Rangi chat group on Facebook which has grown to over 300 members, quite a number of whom contribute via mobile from rural villages in Kondoa district, Northern Central Tanzania, cf. 
https://www.facebook.com/groups/TuluusikeKilaangi/.

Usage of LWCs notwithstanding (which is impossible to disappear), the more online niches are created and advertised, the better for endangered language communities (in the opinion of yours truly).



Linguistic Field(s): Language Documentation
                     Sociolinguistics


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