Discussion Details
| Title: | Re: Social Media and Endangered Languages |
| Submitter: | Oliver Stegen |
| Description: | Great discussion topic, Roger, thanks!
While those endangered language communities which have no access to the internet will probably not benefit directly from digital tools, they can still benefit indirectly, e.g. through language documentation on YouTube. In these times when mobile phones have penetrated to rural areas, much more is possible for indigenous language use on the web. One digital tool showing this for many under-resourced languages (granted, not many of those are also endangered) is IndigenousTweets, cf. http://indigenoustweets.com/ A more individual success story may be the Rangi chat group on Facebook which has grown to over 300 members, quite a number of whom contribute via mobile from rural villages in Kondoa district, Northern Central Tanzania (cf. https://www.facebook.com/groups/TuluusikeKilaangi/ ). Usage of LWCs notwithstanding (which is impossible to disappear), the more online niches are created and advertised, the better for endangered language communities (in the opinion of yours truly). |
| Date Posted: | 22-Feb-2012 |
| Linguistic Field(s): |
Language Documentation
Sociolinguistics |
| LL Issue: | 23.904 |
| Posted: | 22-Feb-2012 |
