The Use of Digital Technologies for Language Revitalization

Evaristo Ovide University of SalamancaCambridge, 25-3-2011

Languages in the world

About 96% of the world population speaks 4% of the existent languages.

From 6000 languages to 3000 in a century (a language dies every 2 weeks)

Language as main representative of a culture

Starting point

Budget: close to zero

Minimum dependence on the Internet and Digital Technologies (DDTT). Basic technical expertise

Approval & support of the indigenous community

Aim: exportable model

5 stages

Documentation

"it's too late to do anything to help many languages, where the speakers are too few or too old, and where the community is too busy just trying to survive to care about their language" - David Crystal

Hebrew

DDTT: audio & video recordings sent to linguists online: transcription,grammars, etc.

Dissemination

Digital media: Audience potentially greater No censorship Cost close to zero

DDTT: digital tv/radio; subtitling in videos; blogs; websites...

Communication

Common problems: Emigration Loss of cultural roots

Virtual communities: Synchronous and asyncronous communication Keeping touch with cultural roots Using the native language

Education

Monolingual children in primary education Secundary education away Illiteracy if not Detachment from roots if they do

DDTT. Online learning: – Blended or distance learning– Teaching language and culture online

Commercialization

Dignification & economic option using cultural and linguistic assets

Ethnotourism: crafts, clothes, dances... E-commerce Self-publishing: books, courses, glossaries

Proyecto Reivindígena

2007: first contacts 2010: 6 weeks revisiting and presenting 2011: 4-5 months implementing it with Toba,

Mocoví and Wichí peoples in collaboration with “Centro de Investigación y Formación para la Modalidad Aborigen” (CIFMA)