On Google's Gatekeepers

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

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?

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]

Stabilizing Indigenous Language

Stabilizing Indigenous Language

Cantoni, G., (Ed). (1996). Stabilizing Indigenous Languages. Flagstaff, Arizona: Northern Arizona University, Center for Excellence in Education, pp. 240.

We hear old people talk in their language and we can learn what they are talking about....The way we had to learn was in this kind of place, isolated like this place, hear the old people telling their old time stories, sharing, hearing old people singing in their Native language. We are away from that. They could tell these stories in their Native language, we are away from that. We are here to see if we could change our course. (Elder speaking at the Academy of Elders meeting, July 1996, Old Minto, Alaska)

The elder's refrain that we are away from the elders' language is stressed by Richard Littlebear in the preface to Stabilizing Indigenous Languages. He poetically writes about the simple act of hearing old people talk in their language so that we can learn it and use it. He cautions the reader not to assume that by producing CD-ROMS, recording elders "before it is too late," or training indigenous linguists, that languages will come back. He suggests something far simpler yet so much more difficult to achieve: the simple act of one generation talking to the next generation in their language and in their context. The book is an outgrowth of symposia "to lay out a blueprint of policy changes, educational reforms, and community initiatives to stabilize and revitalize American Indian and Alaska Native languages" (p. vi). Two conferences were held at Northern Arizona University's Center for Excellence in Education, and a third one was planned for late 1996. Representatives came from 21 states, two U.S. territories, and Canada. The book is part of an ongoing process of community people, linguists, teachers, school board members, and scholars who are concerned with language stabilization. The contributors to this volume are the same individuals, groups, and school systems involved in bilingual education. Yet the simple utterances of a mother to a child or an elder to a child in the vernacular language have proved to be increasingly elusive as indigenous languages in the Americas and elsewhere continue to decline. This presents a dilemma: can schools, once and sometimes continuing to be a cause of language demise, alter their historical role of assimilation and become an agent of the community by meeting the goal of intergenerational language transmission? Can communities simultaneously withstand the pressures of modernization while the number of speakers and culture bearers is in decline and organize themselves to foster intergenerational language transmission? This is what Stabilizing Indigenous Languages is all about. [continue ]

Maintaining Languages What Works? What Doesn't?

Maintaining Languages What Works? What Doesn't? (1)
Joshua Fishman


The last time many of us were assembled at this university Dang Pham, Deputy Director of the Office of Bilingual Education and Minority Languages Affairs, indicated that the United States Government recognizes a special debt of responsibility to assist Native American peoples to foster and strengthen their languages. This second conference at Northern Arizona University was to be a more concrete step in that direction, listening to ideas, perhaps formulating plans that could benefit from such support, and I am sure that all of you are going to be very alert, just as I am, are going to be very alert, to see if any of the promises that were made at the first meeting will materialize. It is an understatement to say that I am pleased and honored to be here. The opportunity to interact with American Indian languages and their activists is an experience that very few sociolinguists in the United States have been able to have. The reason old-timers like myself still come to these meetings is because sometimes we hear a younger colleague saying things that make us understand language maintenance even better than before, let alone finding out what they are doing, which is what we really have to keep up with.[continue]

Noam Chomsky: Manufacturing Consent

New Documentary Film Tracks Languages

Scientists who study linguistics estimate that half the world's spoken languages are likely to disappear in this century. VOA's Paul Sisco spoke with the director of a new documentary film that chronicles the work of two scientists who are traveling the world in a race to preserve what they can.


VOAvideo
October 17, 2008




Scientists estimate that of 7,000 languages in the world, half will be gone by the end of this century. On average, one language disappears every two weeks. THE LINGUISTS follows David Harrison and Gregory Anderson, scientists racing to document languages on the verge of extinction. David and Greg's 'round-the-world journey takes them deep into the heart of the cultures, knowledge, and communities at stake. In Siberia, David and Greg seek to record the Chulym language, which hasn't been heard by outsiders for more than thirty years. The linguists encounter remnants of the racist Soviet regime that may have silenced Chulym for good. In India, tribal children attend boarding schools, where they learn Hindi and English, a trade, and the pointlessness of their native tongues. Similar boarding schools for tribal children existed in the US through most of the twentieth century. David and Greg travel to the children's villages, where economic unrest has stirred a violent Maoist insurgency. The linguists witness the fear and poverty that have driven youth from their native communities. In Bolivia, the Kallawaya language has survived for centuries with fewer than one hundred speakers. David and Greg trek high into the Andes to unlock its secret.

moviefansdcj
August 24, 2008