David Nathan: Plugging in Indigenous Knowledge: Connections and Innovations

New network, newer media

The Internet is a connection infrastructure, like a road network. Built upon it are various information transport systems, including one called 'http' which supports World Wide Web document transfer. Like the road transport system, the Internet provides point-to-point connection (email) while also supporting mass transport where many can share the same experience simultaneously (the Web). In this sense the Web is a kind of broadcasting: it allows sharing and accumulation of cultural 'capital' and cultural 'memory'. Since 1994 in Australia this broadcasting system has grown phenomenally. It has become an infant medium.

In fact, http has changed society's understanding of computing, by transforming the nature of computer networks from one between computers to one of relationships between documents. And properties of documents are in turn being transformed, as discussed further below. Because documents are about authors, audiences, relationships, and power, computers are now, finally, about people. Although the talking robots promised by science fiction in the 1970s and by Artificial Intelligence in the 1980s failed to materialise, millions of people have turned their computers into communication sets and supplied the intelligence themselves. The Web grew so quickly that millions had used it before anyone actually thought of advertising it (Anon. 1997a:156). Its uptake rate has been unprecedented: while it took seventy-five years for the number of telephone users to reach fifty million, "it has taken 10 years to do the same" on the Internet (Riley 1997).

As an evolving medium, the Web is not fundamentally different from the others: its properties are crystallising from a mix of cultural preferences, physical constraints, and other historical and accidental factors. And like other media, once its formats have become conventional, those contributing factors will be reinterpreted as 'natural'. Just as no-one is interested in the workings, specifications or brand of their television, or cares about how its signals are distributed, the Internet will not be mature (or successful) until it disappears from general comment.

Right now, the Web is still 'soft'; its shape has not settled. That is why many Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples have been working to promote expectations of Indigenous participation and content so that these values become built in to the medium. The final shape of the Web will reflect the values and materials of those who have participated in its growth.

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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.

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Adapted from materials provided by University Of Wales - Bangor.

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?

Kevin Kelly: Predicting the next 5,000 days of the web

http://www.ted.com At the 2007 EG conference, Kevin Kelly shares a fun stat: The World Wide Web, as we know it, is only 5,000 days old. Now, Kelly asks, how can we predict what's coming in the next 5,000 days?





There is only One machine.
The web and its OS.
All the screen look into the One.
No bits will live outside web.
To share is to gain
Let the One read it.
The One is us.
We are in the One.
We are in the web