Friday, December 26, 2008

DAM-LR

Project Description

DAM-LR proposes to develop and deploy an infrastructure for the European research community that is interested in an easy management of and access to linguistic resources of all kinds such as large (multimedia) corpora, lexicons, grammar descriptions and others.

It will not only foster the local developments that take place at this moment in various linguistic data centers by deploying prototypical archive solutions but also integrate these local archives virtually such that users of linguistic resources just see one large collection, users have just one identity to access the stored material, ingest mechanisms allow users to integrate new data into this domain of linguistic resources, managers get efficient tools to manage resources in the distributed domain and managers get efficient mechanisms to deal with the access management aspects.

Therefore, the proposed DAM-LR concept will offer completely new opportunities for the producers of data, for the managers and for the users. In doing so DAM-LR will be a very important contribution to establish a Semantic Web of language resources, since only an integrated domain based on interoperable concepts such as unified access mechanisms will allow agents to smoothly find their way in a complex domain of heterogeneous data types.

DAM-LR will be based on 4 pillars that have been discussed intensively at various international meetings.

  • The metadata concept for language resources has been developed during the last 4 years and can be seen as being stabilized and solid
  • The introduction of unique resource identifiers will be important for operating in distributed collections and DAM-LR can use well-proven technology here
  • A unified user and group management system will give persons one identity for accessing all resources and
  • A unified access management system will allow managers to set access rights and delegate the possibility to set access rights in the intended distributed domain.

The DAM-LR project is funded by the EC Research Infrastructures

Concluding Documents

The Language Archiving Technology portal


The Language Archiving Technology portal

"eScience is about global collaboration in key areas of science and the next generation of infrastructure that will enable it" (John Taylor).

The Language Archiving Technology (LAT) is meant to contribute to the sort of infrastructure that will be required in eHumanities. Its design will finally help to boost research in the humanities and to attract indigenous communities and the interested public to use the rich information in the language archive. It focuses on open accessibility of language resources; it supports dynamic and continuously enriched collections according to the Live Archives ideas; it stresses the need for long-term archiving of our digital collections covering unique material about languages that will probably become extinct in a few decades and it follows the trend towards service oriented architectures.

LAT components are being developed and maintained by the Technical Group of the Max-Planck-Institute for Psycholinguistics with the clear intention of maintaining them in the future. All LAT products are or will become available under an Open Source license, and will be usable free-of-charge in academic research. 

http://www.mpi.nl/lat

OREL: Online Resources For Endangered Languages

OREL 

Language support with I.T.: not a high wire act


David Nathan

Paper presented at Learning IT Together, Brisbane, April 1999.

Introduction

For Australia's Indigenous languages - all of which are endangered - the current information technologies (IT) present an opportunity to develop a radical but pragmatic language practice. Multimedia and networked platforms allow us to tap into the best of available resources for language work, and to slice through some of the rhetorical positions that are holding back localised language ownership and use. IT, which is not only the language of our time but also the most powerful language tool other than natural language itself, can be mobilised to enhance the status and motivation of language work, while at the same time producing effective and enduring language resources.

Many factors contribute to the continuing destruction of Australian languages. The main one may be a western ideology of contempt for minority languages and a suspicion of bilingualism (Dorian 1998), an ideology which takes hold even among its victims. Other factors are associated with the relative status of the Indigenous language and the colonial one: they include the socioeconomic status of the language group; the presence or absence of a middle class "with the social self confidence to insist on traditional identity and heritage"; the existence of a body of literature in the language; and an association of the language with religious or other important practices (Dorian 1998:13).

Reversing or combatting these factors is a complex process, and is not guaranteed to maintain endangered languages, let alone revive languages which have been destroyed. We do know at least that perceived status of the language is one important factor. Another important factor for Indigenous Australians is locality. Around Australia, many Aboriginal people emphasise both local ownership of their ancestral language, as well as the strong relationship between language and land, or territory (see, for example, Jeanie Bell in Nathan 1996:25). This ideology underlies a crucial success factor for language programs: local community initiation and participation (Amery 1994:147-50; SSABSA 1996:44,52; WA Ministry of Education 1992:9,29).

There is a grave shortage of authentic texts in Indigenous languages. With its origins in the destruction of languages, the shortage also reflects the literacy disadvantage of many Aboriginal people, as well as the dominance of English for institutional and other status forms of communication. On the other hand, language is not literacy and we should beware of making written materials the core resources of language work (a point often made by Aboriginal people; see also McKay 1996: 233).

We are now at a historical time where Indigenous languages have attracted renewed interest from both their communities and the State educations systems, at the same time as we have new opportunities through IT to generate appropriate resources in forms and contexts that are most effective for language maintenance and revival. IT is an ideal tool for local projects for language recording, preservation, and learning; above all, as a catalyst or platform for participatory practice involving multiple, contexts, objectives and skills. IT is a modern, relevant, and, most importantly, highly valued area, with which we can achieve a range of language objectives.

Why is it important not to have a "high wire act?" Firstly, the difficulties involved in language revival are so great that we cannot afford to expend resources and emotions on projects that do not give sufficient return; or, even worse, projects that are born to fail. Secondly, while computers are the best tool we have for assisting language work, as discussed below, they are most effectively used to create modest resources through community participation in localised settings. All the technological pieces have been put in place over the last 10 years; now they wait to be exploited. Thirdly, there is little point using IT simply because it is there. Sometimes we should smile when teachers are too worried about having internet access in their classroom so students can communicate with children in other states, or countries, when they are never offered the use of, say, a telephone to call Granny to ask how to say something in lingo! And finally, the primary technology underlying computer applications for language is the human technology of natural languages, together with the alphabetic system used to encode them.

Sleeping beauties?

The process of language revival is often bound up with deep emotions and ideology. This has also been noted by Indigenous linguists in similar colonial settings in other countries. However, language revival unavoidably has to be something ideological, something that "we do to ourselves", not "done to us", and must be able to embrace all aspects of the social and personal lives of the community.

Nevertheless, there are some statements that seem to dampen progress toward productive language work. For example, I have heard it explained that some endangered or destroyed languages are not dead, but merely "sleeping". Although we might admire the sleeping beauty of these Indigenous languages, the catchcry should not be an excuse for inaction; it can tend to put off developing, within the community, beliefs and processes aiding language revival. It can also be underpinned by a belief that the community has a special talent for learning its own language, leading to disappointment when it is found just how difficult language work can be.

Other similar statements may not be helpful to language revival. For example, claims that language and the culture are inextricably linked, and that the culture can only be expressed through the language, may discourage or disenfranchise the young people who are the primary targets for language revival (Dorian 1998:20).

Drawing on their experience in south-east Alaska, Dauenhauer and Dauenhauer (one of whom is a native speaker of an Tlingit, an Alaskan language), report typical responses to the question: do we want to preserve our Indigenous languages:

While it is generally politically and emotionally correct to proclaim resoundingly, "Yes!," the underlying and lingering fears, anxieties and insecurities over traditional language and culture suggest that the answer may really be, "No." ... We often find that those who vote "Yes" to "save the language and culture" expect someone else to "save" it for the others ... [b]ut language and culture do not exist in the abstract, as inalienable "products." They exist as active processes in the here and now. 
(Dauenhauer and Dauenhauer 1998:63)

Computers

Perhaps it doesn't matter what tools we use for language work, as long as they foster active participation in the construction of resources that actually tell something of the community's experience. Friere reports of poor Chileans taking part in literacy programs who "wrote words with their tools on the dirt roads where they were working" (Friere 1972:43).

However, the pace and direction of development of the "new media" (multimedia and networked communications) over the past ten years has provided us with two key lessons: what people want is not intelligent computers, but computers that allow us to communicate with other intelligent humans; and secondly, that people prefer messages expressed in "traditional" cultural forms until genuinely effective new genres have been evolved.

Digital platforms can help cut through at least some of the problems that hold back language resource development. Computer activities, and their resulting products, are typically given high status. They offer a goal-directed, quick-feedback context that encourages collaboration between people with a range of skills, in particular, encouraging young people to participate.

Because the new media are now challenging the shape and distribution of information, some people now believe that there are opportunities for Aboriginal people to play more leading roles in communication and publishing, both because of the renewed importance of graphic skills, and also because levels of disadvantage are lowered as people bypass or "leapfrog" the paper-based literacies (cf Nathan 1999).

There are many reasons why the new technologies appear to be perfectly suited to creating and delivering language learning resources:

  • language involves authentic, rich and varied interaction. New technologies provide for this more than ever before
  • multimedia offers presentation of sound, the true medium of human language, as well as other pedagogically effective media (such as graphics)
  • networks support communication and relationships, the function of human language (cf Knobel et al 1997)
  • computers offer a fast, cheap, accessible, and relatively painless tool for text work such as making dictionaries and grammars, designing writing systems
  • hypertext can link texts of all kinds to dictionaries, grammars and other information
  • the convergence of media technologies allows linking cultural artefacts to language activities
  • today's computers and software are accessible and powerful enough for small local communities to create and adapt their own texts and resources

Methodologies

A full discussion of methodologies for using multimedia effectively for language work is beyond the scope of this paper. In summary, strategies for successfully undertaking small-scale multimedia resource development are:
  • emphasise the acquisition or re-presentation of materials that are languageperformances, not merely data or evidence for the construction of analyses
  • store and present sound; make it as accessible as possible, for example, by appropriate selection of interface or enriching the sound data with searchable annotation
  • store different categories of information in robust and neutral formats, so they can be used in the future to create a variety of resources, including those not already forseen
  • pay attention to the design of presentation interfaces; make them attractive and motivating to the intended audiences
  • design for access that is not dependent on written forms
  • use a publishing approach; aim to produce concrete resources that are suited to their intended audiences and not overambitious
  • start now! There is no set of rules for producing effective interactive multimedia, so the best experience comes from "getting hands dirty." Some useful examples of lessons learnt come from the use of cartoons as an elicitation tool (see below).
Using computers does not, of course, guarantee successful outcomes. It is easy to under-exploit their capabilities, for example, by focusing on computers merely as tools to write text-only documents such as dictionaries and grammars. These book products present a literacy barrier to so many Aboriginal students. In addition, this approach fails to foster the participatory, value-adding nature of work with computers, because it channels involvement to outside "experts" who digest, analyse, and re-present the information they receive directly or indirectly from language speakers. Most importantly, we should not ignore the capacity of computers for multimedia presentation; for establishing communication and relationships; and for robust and accessible preservation of important materials. Language is such ideal material for these facilities that to underutilise them in the service of endangered languages is inexcusable.

In a following section I will illustrate a practical application of this framework to the development of useful and authentic resources in the familiar cartoon format.

Cartoons: a case study

Over the past 3 years at AIATSIS we have developed, in collaboration with language speakers, a simple software shell for presenting cartoons. Because there are so many endangered languages, it is wise to create a kind of template into which various language content can be recorded, rather than concentrate entirely on resources for one or two languages. This project has provided many lessons about the use of computers for language work.

The initial suggestion to use an electronic cartoon format came from a Kamilaroi (Gamilaraay) elder and former teacher, Auntie Rose Fernando, of Collarenebri NSW, a prominent and tireless promoter of language preservation in NSW. Cartoons have been used for Aboriginal education before, notably the Streetwize series aimed at health promotion. However, extending them to a computer platform has opened up several new possibilities.

Language use in cartoons combines formula with performance and be regarded as an extension to the use of songs, which have proved very effective in the Indigenous language classroom (Dauenhauer and Dauenhauer 1998:68, Amery 1994, Hudson 1994).

While the scope for presenting spontaneous language via cartoons is limited, their ability to do so is far superior to most of the other forms used in language teaching or recording. Unlike a dictionary, they present words in context; unlike a grammar they present sentences with social meanings; unlike many stories it shows how language is used in the context of real contemporary relationships. (In the right circumstances, the cartoons can incorporate real characters from the local community.) Being less formal than other text forms, they encourage us to retain idiomatic and informal expressions that are otherwise often unwittingly censored from printed products.

Most importantly, of course, cartoons allow us to use sound, and to provide access to the sound of language without intermediation by written forms. The cartoon's graphic form, with speech bubbles that objectify text, serves as an transparent interface or screen device for presenting language. Users know more-or-less what to do and what to expect as they interact with it.

 
Yandrruwanda cartoon. Produced with Greg McKellar and Muda Aboriginal Corporation


source: http://www.it.usyd.edu.au/~djn/papers/NotHighWire.htm

WebCV

 David Nathan's publications

Publications

·     Csató. Éva Á. and David Nathan. 2007. "Multiliteracy, past and present, in the Karaim communities". In Peter K. Austin (ed.) Language documentation and description, Vol. 4.London: The Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Project. 207-230

·     Nathan, David 2006. "Thick interfaces: mobilising language documentation". In Joost Gippert, Nikolaus Himmelmann and Ulrike Mosel (eds.), Essentials of language documentation. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 363-379

·     Nathan, David. 2006. "Proficient, Permanent, or Pertinent: Aiming for Sustainability". InSustainable data from Digital Sources: from creation to archive and back. Linda Barwick and Tom Honeyman (eds). Sydney, Sydney University Press. 57-68

·     Broeder, Dan, Remco van Veenendaal, David Nathan, and Sven Strömqvist. 2006. "A Grid of Language Resource Repositories". In Proceedings of LREC 2006 (Linguistic Resources and Evaluation Conference of the European Language Resources Association).

·     Nathan, David and Éva Á. Csató 2006. "Multimedia: A community oriented information and communication technology". In Anju Saxena & Lars Borin (eds) Lesser-known languages of South Asia. Status and policies, case studies and applications of information technology. [Trends of Linguistics Series] Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 257-277

·     Nathan, David. 2006. "A Talking Dictionary of Paakantyi NSW". In Laurel Dyson, Max Hendriks & Stephen Grant (eds) Information technology and Indigenous People. Hershey PA: Idea Group. 200-204

·     Nathan, David. 2006. Review of "Multilingualism and Electronic Language Management". Walter Daelemans, Theo du Plessis, Cobus Snyman, and Lut Teck (editors). U Antwerp; U Free State; and IHESA, Brussels, Pretoria: Van Schaik (Studies in language policy in South Africa, volume 4). In Computational Linguistics 32.1 (March 2006). 143-147

·     Nathan, David. 2005. "Developing Multimedia Documentation". In P. Austin (ed) Language Description and Documentation Vol 2. London: The Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Project. 154-168

·     Nathan, David. and Peter Austin. 2005. "Reconceiving metadata: language documentation though thick and thin". In P. Austin (ed) Language Description and Documentation Vol 2. London: The Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Project. 179-187

·     HRELP. 2005 (produced by David Nathan) Peter Ladefoged: The disappearing sounds of the world’s endangered languages. London: HRELP, SOAS [Interactive multimedia CD-ROM]

·     Csató. Éva Á. and David Nathan 2004. "Multimedia and the documentation of endangered languages". In Peter K. Austin (ed.) Language documentation and description, Vol. 1.London: The Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Project. 73-84.

·     Nathan, David. 2002. Foundations of Information Technology: A Resource Handbook. Sydney: PearsonEd

·     Hercus, Luise and David Nathan. 2001. Paakantyi. Canberra: ATSIC [multimedia interactive language CD-ROM]

·     Christie, Michael and David Nathan. 2001. Yolngu Language and Culture: Gupapuyngu. Melbourne: Open Learning Australia [multimedia interactive language CD-ROM]

·     Csató, Éva and David Nathan. 2001. Spoken Karaim. Tokyo University of Foreign Studies [multimedia interactive language CD-ROM]

·     Nathan, David. 2000a. "The World Wide Web", in Oxford Companion to Aboriginal Art and Culture. Oxford University Press. Melbourne: OUP, pp 311-312

·     Nathan, David. 2000b. "The Spoken Karaim CD: Sound, Text, Lexicon and ‘Active Morphology’ for Language Learning Multimedia", in Goksel, Asli & Celia Kerslake (eds.) Studies on Turkish and Turkic Languages. pp 405-413. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz

·     Nathan, David. 2000c. "Plugging in Indigenous knowledge - connections and innovations". InAustralian Aboriginal Studies 2000:2, pp 39-47

·     Nathan, David. 1999. Review of "Aboriginal English", by Jay Arthur, in Australian Aboriginal Studies 1999:1

·     Nathan, David. (ed) 1996. Australia’s Indigenous Languages. Adelaide: SSABSA. [Textbook with CD-ROM]

·     Nathan, David. 1996a. The World Wide Web Virtual Library: Australian Aboriginal Languages.http://www.dnathan.com/VL/austLang.htm (established 1996)

·     Nathan, David. 1996b. "Caught in a Web of Murri Words: Making and Using the Gamilaraay Web Dictionary", in Library Automated Systems Information Exchange. Vol 27:4, pp 35-42

·     Austin, Peter and David Nathan. 1996. Gamilaraay Web Dictionary.http://coombs.anu.edu.au/WWWVLPages/AborigPages/LANG/GAMDICT/GAMDICT.HTM

·     Nathan, David. 1992. "You can say that again! The status of direct and indirect speech as grammatical categories". In LaTrobe Working Papers in Linguistics. Vol 5, pp 81-106

·     Nathan, David and Peter Austin. 1992 "Finderlists, Computer-generated, for bilingual dictionaries". In International Journal of Lexicography. Vol 5:1, pp 32-65.

·     Austin, Peter and David Nathan. 1989. A Dictionary of Payungu, Western Australia. La Trobe University

·     Nathan, David 1986 "Land Rights - Triumph over the nomads?". In Laura, vol 5, 89-102

 

Recent international conferences, lectures etc

2007

·     "Multimedia in language documentation and support: Working with Diaspora groups – the Karaim project". August 2007. Invited workshop presentation (with Eva Csató) at Summer School on Documenting Endangered Iranian Languages, University of Kiel, Germany

·     "Opening Dawes: Organising Knowledge around a Linguistic Manuscript". September 2007. Paper presented (with Stuart Brown) at Digital Resources in the Humanities and Arts, Dartington, UK

·     "Digital archives: essential elements in the workflow for endangered languages documentation and revitalisation". June 2007. Paper presented at International Conference on Austronesian Endangered Languages, Providence University, Taiwan

2006

·     "Language endangerment, documentary linguistics, and the Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Project". September 06. Invited Keynote lecture at International Conference on Turkish Linguistics, University of Uppsala, Sweden

·     "Proficient, Permanent, or Pertinent: Aiming for Sustainability". December 2006. Paper presented at Sustainable data from Digital Sources: from creation to archive and back, University of Sydney, Australia

·     "Sound and Unsound Documentation: Questions about the roles of audio in language documentation". March 2006. Paper presented at the Georgetown University Roundtable on Linguistics, Georgetown University, Washington DC, USA

·     "Technologies for a Federation of Language Resource Archives". May 2006. Paper presented (with Daan Broeder, Peter van de Kamp, Freddy Offenga, Sven Strömqvist, Peter Wittenburg) at LREC Workshop: Towards a Research Infrastructure for Language Resources, Genoa, Italy

·     "DAM-LR as a Language Archive Federation: strategies and prospects". May 2006. Paper presented (with Remco van Veenendaal) at LREC Workshop: Towards a Research Infrastructure for Language Resources, Genoa, Italy

2005

·     "Multimedia: a confluence of linguistic rights, documentation, and resource management". April 2005. Invited presentation at The Dialogue of Cultures, The Vigdís Finnbogadóttir Institute of Foreign Languages. University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland

·     "Towards portability and interoperability for linguistic annotation and language-specific ontologies." July 2005. Paper presented (with Robert Munro) at the E-MELD Workshop on Linguistic Ontologies and Data Categories for Language Resources. Harvard University, Cambridge, USA

·     "Introducing the ELAR information system architecture". November 2005. Paper presented (with Robert Munro) at The Third meeting of the Digital Endangered Languages and Music Archive Network (DELAMAN III), University of Texas, Austin, USA

2004

·     September 2004. "Meet the interface: inscribing community participation in language resource software development". Invited lecture at A World of Many Voices, Interfaces in Language Documentation: Linguistics, Anthropology, Speech Communities, and Technology. University of Frankfurt/Main, Germany

·     "ELAR - Reconceptualising the Digital Archive as Ark-hive". Paper presented at Annual Conference of the Australian Linguistic Society, July 2004 Sydney, Australia

·     "Reconceiving metadata: language documentation standards through thick and thin". Paper presented (with Peter Austin) at Annual Conference of the Australian Linguistic Society, July 2004. Sydney, Australia

·     "The modern language archive: from microphone to multimedia" May 2004. Invited lecture at Coimbra University, Portugal

·     "Archives: the communities of users". Invited presentation (with Peter Austin and Robert Munro) at DoBeS Access Workshop. November 2004. Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

2003

·     "Endangered languages documentation: from standardization to mobilization". Paper presented at Digital resources for the Humanities 2003. University of Gloucestershire, September 2003

 

Websites

·     Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Project 
One of the world's largest projects in support of endangered languages

·     Karaim Multidictionary: Karaim to Russian 
Karaim to Russian worldlist, searchable in both languages. Created by Éva Csató & David Nathan

·     London Confucius Institute 
Organisation for the promotion and teaching of Mandarin Chinese. I was contracted to design and maintain this site

·     Gamilaraay/Kamilaroi Web Dictionary 
Dictionary of the Australian language Kamilaroi, produced in collaboration with Peter Austin. This is the new version of the first true hypertext web dictionary ever published

·     World Wide Web Virtual Library : Australian Indigenous languages 
Creator and editor. Current access rate: around 100,000 per month. The Virtual Library is the World Wide Web Consortium's officially recognised network of authoritative and quality web resources

·     The Turkish Suffix Dictionary 
Interactive dictionary of the nominal suffixes of Turkish. Shows the main suffixes viewed in their written, abstract, or functional forms, with examples. Created in collaboration withÉva Á. Csató

·     AIATSIS website 
Foundation web editor; site conception, content development, markup, maintenance, indexing software etc etc (1996-7). Oversaw AIATSIS' first million hits!

·     FATSIL (Federation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Languages) 
I was contracted to create this website based on materials supplied by FATSIL. Together with FATSIL's Faith Baisden, I continued to maintain it until 2003.

·     Language of the Month Series: 
Gumbaynggir | Wangatha | Guugu Yimithirr | Ngiyampaa | Warumungu | Gunggari |Ngarrindjeri | Yorta Yorta | Tasmanian | Bunuba | Noongar | Wardaman | Miriam Mir & Kala Lagaw Ya | Narrungga 
A series of original contributions about languages written by Indigenous contributors, and produced in collaboration with the Federation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Languages

·     Warrungu Interactive Concordance 
An interactive concordance for a short text in Warrungu (Queensland, Australia), produced in collaboration with Tasaku Tsunoda. Includes sounds.

·     Aboriginal Studies Electronic Data Archive (ASEDA) 
Catalogue of AIATSIS holdings of electronic files about Australian Indigenous languages. Computer-generated web pages produced by my eMU software

·     Spoken Karaim CD web site 
Documenting a multimedia CD project, with Éva Á. Csató

·     Australian Indigenous Leadership Centre 
Promotion and information site for national Aboriginal leadership project. I created the original site (which was part of AIATSIS' website) together with Margaret Cranney of AIATSIS, and continued to maintain it for some time

·     Hypertext Course 
Notes and resources for course taught at the Australian Linguistic Institute, Melbourne, July 2000

 

Selected online papers

·     Endangered languages documentation: from standardization to mobilization. Paper presented at Digital resources for the Humanities 2003. University of Gloucestershire, September 2003

·     Plugging in Indigenous knowledge. A paper delivered to the 1997 Fulbright Symposium on Indigenous People in an Interconnected World. Published as "Plugging in Indigenous knowledge - connections and innovations", in Australian Aboriginal Studies 2000:2, pp 39-47

·     The Spoken Karaim CD: Sound, Text, Lexicon and Active Morphology for Language Learning Multimedia. Published in Goksel, Asli & Celia Kerslake (eds.) 2000. Studies on Turkish and Turkic Languages. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz

·     Language support with I.T.: not a high wire act. Paper presented at Learning IT Together, Brisbane, April 1999. This paper argues that IT should be used with care in language maintenance and revival situations because they are already so fraught with so many difficulties: nevertheless, the opportunities are great

·     Hypertext and the dictionary game. An otherwise unpublished paper about the limited mechanisms for recognising quality of resources on the web, with suggestions for understanding how quality is achieved in a hypertext system with reference to dictionaries.

 



My old USyd page | Japanese information (1998)  
 
Last updated: 29 October 2007
URL: http://www.dnathan.com/djn/webcv.htm


Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Statement from Stephen A. Wurm

THREE MAIN REASONS FOR THE STUDY AND DOCUMENTATION OF ENDANGERED LANGUAGES

  1. Each language reflects a unique world-view and culture complex and is the means of expression of the intangible cultural heritage of a people. With the disappearance of such a language, an irreplaceable unit in our knowledge and understanding of human thought and world-view has been lost forever, resulting in a reduction of the sum total of the reservoir of human knowledge as expressible through language, and of the usually rich oral literature and mythology of which that language was the instrument of expression;
  2. UNO and UNESCO have declared the right to speakers' own language to be a basic human right. Every language is a symbol of the ethnic identity of its speakers, which they hold dear, and which gives them the feeling of possessing some thing additional to what the usually monolingual speakers of large dominant languages have. Documentation of a language tends to keep it alive, and even if it becomes moribund or dies, the descendants of its speakers tend to clamour for records of it so that they can revitalize or revive it, as this is happening more and more in several parts of the world today;
  3. Maintaining knowledge of non-dominant and minority languages preserves a cultural diversity which is just as important as maintaining the physical biodiversity in the world which is nowadays clamoured for by many people.

Thursday, December 4, 2008

Language Development Via The Internet


ScienceDaily (Feb. 28, 2005) — Educationalists may rail against the increased use of 'txt' shorthand by children in their school work, and that is only proper, for there is a time and a place for everything. However, the advent of new language styles and forms engendered by the Internet, and related communication developments such as SMS messaging, should be greeted with delight, according to internationally renowned language expert, Professor David Crystal, Honorary Professor of Linguistics at the University of Wales, Bangor.


Professor Crystal tells the Annual Conference of the AAAS that this is the greatest opportunity for the development of the English language since the advent of the printing press in the Middle Ages. The variety of applications of new technology leads to new stylistic forms and increases the expressive range of a language, especially at the informal end of the spectrum. Indeed not so long ago, people were getting ready to mourn the passing of the diary as a literary form, when hey presto! we see a renaissance in the form of the on-line diary, web log or 'blog'.

Changes in communication technology are invariably accompanied by concerns about language, explains Crystal. In this instance, because people notice a growth of informality in language use, their concerns center around whether this will cause a general deterioration in the quality of the language.

"The prophets of doom emerge every time a new technology influences language, of course - they gathered when printing was introduced, in the 15th century, as well as when the telephone was introduced in the 19th, and when broadcasting came along in the 20th; and they gathered again when it was noticed that Internet writing broke several of the rules of formal standard English - in such areas as punctuation, capitalization, and spelling," says Crystal. " All that has happened, in fact, is that the language's resources for the expression of informality in writing have hugely increased - something which has not been seen in English since the Middle Ages, and which was largely lost when Standard English came to be established in the 18th century. Rather than condemning it, therefore, we should be exulting in the fact that the Internet is allowing us to once more explore the power of the written language in a creative way.' But he adds: 'There is of course, a role for educationalists in teaching children which style is the most appropriate and where'.

Technology bears gifts also for linguistics scholarship: according to Crystal, it is a new opportunity for academic study. He outlines to delegates the 'once in a lifetime' opportunity offered by the emerging communication media. A new academic study of 'Internet Linguistics' includes, at the very least, a comparative study of the style of different formats and the development of language change within these new media.

From his own early assessments, Prof Crystal concludes that a surprisingly small number of new words have been spawned, while 'txt'ing, blogging and other forms have given radical opportunities to develop new stylistic rules. He believes that the new forms of interaction seen in Internet exchanges are far more important than changes in vocabulary, grammar, and spelling. But in his own words he adds, "We aint seen nothin' yet!"

Finally, as the Internet becomes more linguistically diverse, it also extends a hand to minority languages and minority language speakers. The Internet's accessibility aids documentation in and of minority languages and enables minority language speakers separated by space to maintain a virtual contact through email, chat and instant messaging environments. Embracing emerging 'cool' technologies in a minority language can also play a role in persuading the youth of an endangered language community that the language is something that has relevance to them.


Adapted from materials provided by University Of Wales - Bangor.

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

A Repository

Indigenous languages are repositories of indigenous knowledge.

Akoy
2008.12.3

Sunday, November 30, 2008

On Google's Gatekeepers


Google as provider of  a search engine, gmail, and youtube among other services is key player of the internet. How they play their own terms and regulations, with the rules of governments, commercial corporations including their own is significant. Google has a power to steer the direction of the internet. But this power is build on trust.  Google is good, what if it turns bad? What if it betrays the trust?

Then we'll know once again that true powers reside in the people and internet is for them and by them. No one corporation can dictate the fate of cyberspace.

At least, it is recognizable now that Google has a vision that reaches to the whole globe for data and information which is made availabe for all (within it's terms)  and the same time sitting on the 'search engine' and 'gmail' and 'youtube', all for free and for freedom of speech, who could beat it?

 “The idea that the user is sovereign has transformed the meaning of free speech,” Wu said enthusiastically about the Internet age. But Google is not just a neutral platform for sovereign users; it is also a company in the advertising and media business.

May be, greed will blind it's vision.


What could Google do to improve?   It has now contributed Chrome to the the world of browsers? Would it contribute an Operating Sytem? Or provide services as a Domain Name Server? Or host websites? Would Google still be a player in the next generation of world wide web?

"She stressed the importance for Google of bringing its own open culture to foreign countries while still taking into account local laws, customs and attitudes. “What is the mandate? It’s ‘Be everywhere, get arrested nowhere and thrive in as many places as possible.’ ”

In this cocktail  created by Google, what could make it sour?

Would it play a role in preserving and saving endangered languages? 

Against The Powers Of Forgetfulness

I see it differently, the 'real enemy' is gahom sa kalimot (the 'power of forgetfullness'.)

Thus we have to remember, to tell our story in our tongue, to speak and use our language,
as we fight against those who inject amnesia into our system or against our own weakness and forgetfulness. Yes, within and without, the real enemy has minions of soldiers looting away the memories of unsuspecting people.

Thus, remember to use our own language, let's remember its power, or the power of remembering, by using our own language, awareness and memory, let's fight the ultimate enemy, 'the dominion of oblivion' which is now claiming into its lists of victims hundreds to the thousands of endangered languages. It has even claimed under its spell the once glorious languages, but now virtually forgotten.

The real enemy can take control of your head. It can even use you to fight in battles against lesser enemies to win them only to be defeated in the war against 'the real enemy', the 'dominion of oblivion', 'the power of forgetfullness'.

You can take away lesser enemies, they could be gone even in your lifetime. But when they're gone...what have you won against 'forgetfulness'? And when they're gone...it is not over. No! For the weapons and strategies you use were not used against the 'real enemy'. You have played into his war, his seductive game of forgetting.

You thought you have been fighting the enemy all along, no you are 'forgetting' all along.
Succumbing to the powers of forgetfullness, ultimately losing the war against the dominion of oblivion.

There's always a lot of fight in remembering and promoting one's own language. Every now and 'now' is the time to use it and to remember. Don't delay. Don't give another inch to 'the dominion of oblivion'.

Beware of anything that causes you to forget or to not use your own language. They may be good and useful, but still they can be used by the 'powers of forgetfulness' to deceive you and make you forget even simple truths.


In this war, you could be your own enemy...for how many brave and good people ended up losing their memories...even the memories of their victories and the names of their children.

Always, remember and be aware. Even as you fight the lesser enemies, don't forget. Don't lose the real fight, against forgetting.

Be not be deceived. Remember the simplest truth.
Use your language or forget it.

Akoy
2008.11.30

Saturday, November 29, 2008

Shame of Mother Tongue, Mother of all Shame


Among other reasons,due to loss of language prestige or confidence, taken over by shame or low cultural-self esteem, the ethnic person chooses to speak another language rather than his own. How does this happen? What really causes a person to stop using his own local language? Is it because speaking the more dominant language has economic value? Is it because the dominant language is the 'National language', the 'universal' language?(Is it universal truly even if it is not beneficial to the mother language at all?)Is it because the mainstream language is more advanced? Is it because of the educational system that brainwashed the student to speak in a foreign language rather than his own, to write in a foreign language instead of his own, and even to the extent of thinking and praying in a foreign language, thus putting aside one's mother tongue to a corner of one's soul, until it is blown away into oblivion? Is it because he thinks that the local is low class, uncouth, vulgar, such remnant of colonial mentality, still a captive of the humiliating history and the on-going conditions that marginalized and disadvantaged him continuously? Is it despair? Apathy? Helplessness? Resigned to fate, a loss of vision of an agreable future? Is it powerlessness? Unable to wield his own destiny? Maybe not in body, but in mind and heart, in soul and spirit, is he still unfree, paralyzed into passivity, apathy and indifference or perhaps, disillusioned into reactivity, blaming,cursing,regretting? Unbeknownst to him, in many ways he is virtually controlled and as enslaved as ever? And perhaps, it is the lulling chains of language through which the powers that be, in their domains and dominions, as in media advertisements (or propaganda), or governments, impose on him the ideas of injustice, inequality, prejudice, etc,as the normal truth and reality, that to which he has to believe and be subservient. He is defeated and weakened in spirit, in mind and body, black and blue, bruised all over, and 'dila ray way labod' (only the tongue is unbruised). That's almost a total beating, except for his tongue.


His mother tongue is his last refuge, last fortress, last defense. If his mother tongue is lost, unimaginable power is buried with it, such as the power to create...to name...to mean...to own one's own...to be one's self, as to be confident in one's own groundedness, in one's own cultural identity, belongingness to one's own community and people, etc. So it is, with out such powers... what a shame! What a shame! When ashamed to death, one's own pride and basic humanity is wounded dangerously. One who is down wishes not to stand up and for one who is standing wishes only to walk away, or react as to lose one's his mind perhaps in utter madness or hate. Perhaps, even, deep within he loses himself in the hate of his own self-image. Or simply, he loses the power of speech, as in being dumbfounded.


But such is the power of language, it paints in words and phrases, such images, including self-images, or cultural identities. Can't be otherwise, but it's a linguistic or symbolic creation. Just as well, the creative faculty for human language is a divine gift for humanity, a unique endowment, a birthright of every human being.


There lies in the deep within, the true Self, the being that expresses itself in one's own freedom, dignity, power, intelligence, confidence etc, and even simply in one's own language.

Google

Google, or any such search engine, is a magnificent web tool. Just as email especially in relation to egroups, serves as the main online experience for many people. Both of these are significant web tools. In what way could they be used to save endangered languages?

Interoperability

As designed by the internet pioneers, interoperability (interlinking,hyperlinking) is at the heart of the web. Yes, weaving of the web. Simply, linking. How to use this to save endangered languages?

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

1997:Hmong agus teangacha eile

Hmong agus teangacha eile

Agallamh SBS le Marion Gunn et al., 1997-09

Agallamh raidió (Radio interview)
Transcript of September 1997 SBS (Australia) broadcast, by kind permission of Gina Wilkinson

f11-A sfx 0:15
(Sound of modem connecting, then typing)

Throughout the world, people are being urged to get hooked up to the internet and join the telecommunications revolution.

But the vast majority of information available on the internet is in English.

Linguists and computer experts warn this could have profound implications for non-English speakers.

They say the net holds both opportunities and dangers for rare and endangered languages. [continue]