Only 4% of Languages are used online.

In Only 4% of Languages are used online, Priceonomics reports on the paper  “Digital Language Death”, by Andreas Kornai.

The article mentions that the internet is a potential threat to many languages.  If a language is unused in this domain, it may suffer a loss of function and prestige.

It makes an interesting point that the internet situation is not a normal case of language decline, but the reverse:  whether languages will  "establish themselves as viable options for digital use."

In investigating online language use, the article states:   "A language’s Wikipedia presence was one of the most important indicators of its ability to leap into the digital age."   Which is interesting, considering that Even Hindi Falls Behind.

Star Wars to be dubbed into Navajo.

In "Luke, I am your bizhe'e:", The Telegraph reports on a project to dub the original Star Wars film into Navajo.

The article mentions some of the challenges of translating novel sci-fi concepts, and draws parallels with the efforts of  Code Talkers to coin appropriate terms for WWII concepts such as tanks and grenades.

The project is funded by the Navajo Parks and Recreation Department.

Guardian reports on Awá genocide.

In 'They're killing us': world's most endangered tribe cries for help, Gethin Chamberlain of The Observer reports on the plight of the Awá people, and the related upcoming Survival International campaign.

The article states that it is not just the removal of the forest that is threatening the Awá and their way of life, but also that "Hired gunmen – known as pistoleros – are reported to be hunting Awá who have stood in the way of land-grabbers"

Though their language is not mentioned, the number "355", given as the "number of surviving members". This corresponds well with the Ethnologue and UNESCO records of 370 and 283 speakers of Guaja speakers.

machine translation for minority languages

In Mash-up aids translation of obscure languages New Scientist describes a project from Universidad Politécnica de Valencia to extend machine translation to "minority languages".

The intent is to create translations which are "unlikely to be grammatically correct, and may contain unusual spellings, but it should be understandable to a minority language speaker" by choosing words from related languages for which machine translators are available.

The article reports on a test in which content was translated from Swedish to Spanish in this fashion, and that the authors "plan to test the system with a minority language, even though it is often hard to find native speakers to take part in experiments."

According to the article, David Yarowsky, of Johns Hopkins University says that "the rise of the internet means that languages with less than a million speakers will struggle to survive."

Even Hindi falls behind

In Wikipedia woos India with local languages , The Hindustan times reports on WikiConference India 2011.

Though the article only mentions major Indian languages, rather than any of the 197 languages of India listed in the Unesco Atlas, I thought that the following paragraph was notable in the scope of this blog.

Wales said that the Indian page editors have experienced technical complications due to the lack of digital archiving and difficulty in accessing keyboards enabled with regional script. “The number of Indian language pages on Wikipedia is very small compared to the number of people who speak the language,” said Wales. “Globally, there are more than 35,000 Wikipedians, who make at least five edits on the English page everyday. However, in terms of numbers, the Hindi page is far behind with barely 50 Wikipedians making five edits daily,” he added.

In Wikipedia, we have a major international and multilingual resource; but even Hindi, with 180 Million speakers falls way behind English, due to differences in internet penetration and a Latin bias in computer hardware.

BBC and Independent report on Andaman dictionary

In First Andaman dictionary a 'linguistic treasure trove', Alastair Lawson reports on Prof. Anvita Abbi's  forthcoming Multilingual Dictionary of Great Andamanese, containing content from Bo, Khora, Jeru, and Sare.

The article emphasises the age of the Andamanese culture and languages.  There is also a short piece of audio content, playing some Andamanese words and phrases, alongside their English equivalents

In Breathing Life into a Dying Language , The Independent also reports on the same story.  It's emphasis is on the death last year of Boa Sr, the last speaker of Bo.

Last of the Manchus

In The last of the Manchus: Et tu Manchu,The Economist reports on the decline of the Manchu language from "National Language of a vast empire" to near extinction in just a century, putting a human face on the decline in the form of Ms Zhao, one of the only two fluent speakers of Manchu in her village.  The decline turns out not to be so rapid, as 100 years ago, it wasn't as widely spoken as the opening line implies.  However, the report does raise some important points:

1. Opression can cause language loss:
• As the "language of the oppressors", the decline was accelerated by the revolution in China, when "Hundreds if not thousands of Manchu civilians" were "were massacred during the revolution by vengeful Han troops".  At the same time, many Manchu would have stopped speaking the language to avoid punishment.
2. Language death can lead to a loss of history, even in a literate society: 
• "2m out of 10m Qing documents in the country’s collection are written in Manchu."
3. Reporting on speaker numbers is difficult, the article states that Ms Zhao is one of the last two fluent speakers in her village.
• According to the article, " In 1979 there were 50 fluent speakers left"
• Ethnologue reports that there were 60 speakers in 1999,
• UNESCO Atlas gives a "compromise figure" of 10, with no date on that statistic.
4. Language revitalisation projects can be too late:
• "About six years ago Sanjiazi set up the country’s first Manchu school. But Ms Zhao does not think this will make much difference. The Manchu teachers, she says, do not understand her Manchu"

ELA on Today Programme

This morning's Today Programme, on BBC Radio 4, included an item on the Endangered Language Alliance.  The report stated that they are mostly working with the New York members of various diasporas, and included  interviews with speakers of three minority languages, Nahuatl, Shugni, and Circassian.

The brief summary given in the online timeline is:

"It is estimated that world languages are dying out at the rate of one every fortnight. This statistic has prompted a small group of linguists in New York to form the Endangered Language Alliance. Our reporter Matt Wells visited them at their field station in the middle of Manhattan, to see how they are trying to preserve minority voices from disappearing."

Programme: Avoiding Language Extinction

All words in Ninde start with N

In An Idiot Abroad, Series 2 Episode 1, "Desert Island", the protagonist spends a night alone on a small island in Vanuatu, after meeting with the residents of a nearby island for some instruction and cultural background.

The locals speak Ninde.  It is implied that all Ninde words begin with n, and a joke is made that games of I-Spy must be boring.

He also visits other communities in Vanuatu, (the Yaohnanen, and a community that practices Land Diving), but nothing is said about language there.

Berenstain Bears in Lakota

A new children's cartoon series, featuring the Berenstain Bears is to be aired in Lakota , called "Matho Waunsila Thiwahe" or "Compassionate Bear Family".

I first saw this article in the Dickinson Press in early August, but I've been waiting for it to break on a less local news source, and also to come to a site without a paywall. Four days ago, AP published the story, and as such has now spread to Time and CBS

The Age on Children's books

In Silly Stories with a serious message, Elisabeth Tarica reports on The Naked boy and the Crocodile, a book edited by children's author Andy Griffiths but comprised of "13 stories written and illustrated by children that he had met" travelling to remote communities in Australia.

She also comments on the low literacy rates amongst Indigenous Australian children, and also mentions the Book Buzz programme, under which, "popular picture books such as The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Dear Zoo and Where is the Green Sheep? are translated into local languages and supplied to preschoolers in remote communities." The project has "achieved amazing results because the books are translated into the Ngaanyatjarra language.

The article highlights the importance of literacy to the individual in "today's print-driven world", but makes no mention of the importance of written materials in the survival of a language in such a print-driven world, by maintaining the prestige of a language.

The Age: New chapter for ancient songbook

In New chapter for ancient songbook, Andrew Bock writes about The Song Peoples Sessions, a project to produce both archival material, and commercial releases of traditional and contemporary indigenous Australian musicians.

The article claims that "This is the first project to help contemporary indigenous musicians learn traditional language and record music with song people from their own families", and relates the stories of some of the musicians involved.

Languages mentioned: Yanyuwa, Warumungu

The Economist on the Berber Spring

In Springtime for them too?, The Economist reports on the "Berber renaissance taking place across north Africa", alongside the Arab Spring.

The article notes that "Moroccan Berber" has recently been recognised by the Government there. Ethnologue lists Five Berber languages spoken in Morocco: Ghomara, Tamazight (Central Atlas), Tachelhit, Senhaja de Srair, and Tachawit



It includes a short history of written Berber:

A written script for the various Berber dialects was created only in the 20th century. Algeria’s Kabyles, a Berber people said to number 4m, have usually preferred the Latin alphabet, whereas a Tuareg alphabet, called Tifinagh, is now officially used in Morocco and has been adopted by Libyan Berbers who were banned from using it under the colonel. (The Tuareg are nomadic Berber pastoralists living mainly in southern Algeria, eastern Mali and western Niger.)

Although, in the most part, it speaks of Berber Languages as a group, Tamazight is mentioned by name, referred to as: "Tamazight, the Berber tongue". In context, that phrase could be interpreted as having an implied "... spoken in Libya", but a casual reading might assume it is the Berber language. Although not identified as languages, the Tuareg and Kabyle people are also mentioned.

Crikey Reposts a Paradisec post.

In Deeply depressing news from the North – the slow death of bilingualism in remote Northern Territory schools, Bob Gosford reports on a post by Jane Simpson on the Endangered Langauges and Cultures blog, bringing the issue to a broader audience

Gosford states (about Simpson and her post):

She knows what she is talking about, so when she writes in such dramatic terms we should all sit back and listen.

ABC Reports on Indigenous translation of National Anthem

In Kutju Australia, our land is girt by red dust
, ABC reports on a new translation of the Australian National Anthem into Loritja Pintupi.

The translation was undertaken by "politician Alison Anderson and musician Ted Egan", "to increase awareness about the language of Australia's first people."

The article claims that it is the first translation in to an indigenous Australian language.

FastCompany reports on LiveAndTell

LiveAndTell, A Crowdsourced Quest To Save Native American Languages

FastCompany reports on the LiveAndTell Project. Originally set up "as an efficient, easy-to-use way to pass the Lakota Sioux language (and others) from older generations to younger ones", with a goal of "just lowering the barriers and the costs for everybody"; and described in the article as " an attempt to preserve endangered indigenous dialects such as Lakota and Ho Chunk"

The author comments that although there is plenty of learning material available in Spanish, French or German, "For Native American languages, there's a scarcity of learning materials,”. The article contrasts the organic, crowdsourcing nature of LiveAndTell with the scientific approach of Rosetta Stone.


Other projects mentioned in the article:

• Livemocha
• Rosetta Project
• Rosetta Stone Endangered Langueages Project

Al-Jazeera on Libyan Berbers

Al-Jazeera English reports on Amazigh speakers in Libya.



Although the language appears not to be endangered (Ethnologue reports the language to have at least 2,540,000 speakers in Algeria, and it isn't included on the UNESCO list, notably, ehtnologue does not list any speakers in Libya); this clip describes attempts by the Libyan Government to stamp it out, and a new radio station, newspaper, and school class in the language. All coming into existence since the recent uprising.

Breath of Life Project

In: UTA helps Native Americans learn to save own languages, The
Arlington Star Telegram Reports on the Breath of Life Program.

The program is "a joint effort by experts from the University of Texas at Arlington and the University of Oklahoma -- in which linguists mentor American Indians so they can better recover endangered languages."

According to the article, members of the Osage, Otoe and Natchez communities took part in the first workshop.

The project is modelled after a project of the same name at Berkeley

Language Activist recognised in Queen's Birthday Honours

Channel Nine: Language lover listed in Queen's honours

Arrernte elder, Veronica Mary Dobson has been appointed a Member of the Order of Australia for service to the indigenous community as a linguist, naturalist and ecologist.

Not only is it pertinent to this blog that she has been honoured in this way, but also that Channel Nine saw fit to create an article specifically about her receipt of the medal, rather than as a footnote in a larger Honours List article.

The Existential Problems of minority cultures.

The Australian: Speaking one's mother tongue is vital



Noel Pearson writes in The Australian on the existential problems of Indigenous Australians, and by extension, other minority cultures ("Where are the Livonians today?", and "The Swedes on the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea...under Russian or Soviet domination").

He makes particular mention of the Guugu Yimdhirr, to whom the author "belongs historically and linguistically, and through descent.", but also mentions the Yolngu.

He states that "Anglophones, such as non-indigenous Australians, have difficulty understanding the existential angst of small ethnicities." because "The English language and the Anglophone culture are the most powerful forces in history."

He ends with a plea:

If you don't know an indigenous Australian language, learn one. (People with no indigenous Australian family may learn the language of the area with which they have the strongest ties.) If you know an indigenous Australian language, improve your grasp of it; literacy in Australian languages is still rare.


Then speak it to the children. This is the noblest and worthiest cause for an Australian patriot.