[Air-l] Language on the Internet (was AoIR in Latin-America)

[joshua raclaw]

Alex,

Are you suggesting that a spoken minority language might actually become
endangered because it doesn't have an online presence?  A vast majority of
these minority languages don't even have a writing system.

I'd be interested in any studies you've come across that specifically mention
internet use as a factor in language loss (and I'm not sure that UNESCO article
has anything to do with this idea).

Joshua



Joshua Raclaw - PhD student
Department of Linguistics
University of Colorado at Boulder



Quoting Alex Kuskis <alex.kuskis at netscape.ca>:

* Nils,
* "You can never understand one language until you understand at least
* two." -Ronald Searle (1920- )
*
*
*
* That quotation might be debatable. What is not is that the major languages,
* especially English, dispersed world wide via the Internet, are putting
* pressure on minority languages far more than previous electronic media such
* as TV (see below). So, it's not just a matter of language adaptation, but
* rather of survival. German will adapt and survive, as will other major
* languages like French and Spanish. They will be interesting case studies.
* But aboriginal languages worldwide are threatened, as are many in Africa and
* South America, which is a loss of cultural diversity (as suggested by the
* Safir quote someone posted). Yes, for better or worse, English has become
* the lingua franca, more so than Latin or French ever were.........Alex
* Kuskis
*
* Minority languages at risk: UNESCO
* Last Updated Tue, 21 Feb 2006 15:54:11 EST
* CBC Arts
* More than half of the world's nearly 6,000 languages are in danger of
* disappearing, pushed aside by dominant languages such as English, UNESCO
* warned Tuesday.
* A group of linguistic specialists gathered in Paris Tuesday for a conference
* marking the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
* Organization's sixth annual International Mother Language Day.
* When a language dies, "it's a vision of the world that disappears," UNESCO
* director general Koichiro Matsuura said, according to Agence France-Presse.
* Delegates at the conference discussed new initiatives to protect linguistic
* diversity worldwide, including a plan for an Italian museum dedicated to
* languages and the elevating of the African Academy of Languages to a more
* significant role in the African Union.
* Participants, who included delegates from Europe, Africa and Latin America,
* shared stories about the difficulties faced by those who speak minority
* languages.
* Former Iceland president Vigdis Finnbogadottir, who led the country as its
* first female president from 1980 through 1996, also presented the 2005
* Danish documentary In Languages We Live - Voices of the World, which
* examines the impact of disappearing languages through the stories of
* individuals.
* This year, the conference also looked at the specific issue of linguistic
* diversity on the internet.
* "It is not necessary that these [minority] languages disappear under the
* weight of others," said Musa Bin Jaafar Bin Hassan, president of the General
* Conference of UNESCO.
* "They should be means of expression that live and exist alongside the major
* languages of the world."
*
http://www.cbc.ca/story/arts/national/2006/02/21/unesco-languages-disappear.html
*
* Alex,
* you just indicated why English speaker indeed
* should learn another language, or why it is not
* such a bad idea, despite the fact that all the
* others do speak some form of English... the
* reasons to learn a language go beyond love or
* curiosity... to speak or understand a language  -
* not the same thing necessarily - also means to
* understand a culture, or is at least a gateway to
* begin to understand... language also transports
* meaning and culture..
*
* "The Internet
* is not static, continues to evolve, mostly out of the English-
* speaking realm where it's so integrated with the culture, "
*
* if this is true for the Internet, then other
* languages may give a hint on how these adapt to
* this technology, how they see the world etc...
* also we all can communicate with English as a
* lingua franca, we may not understand the other
* rightly..
*
* just a thought....
*
* best
* nilz
*
* >The downside of all this for the English-speaking
* >world is that it reinforces mono-lingualism and language
* >chauvinism. It's admirable to learn a language for love or curiosity,
* >but the fact is that most people do it for economic advantage and
* >up until recently, English speakers haven't had to.
*
* --
* Dr. Nils Zurawski
* Universität Hamburg
* Inst. für kriminologische Sozialforschung
* Allende-Platz 1
* 20146 Hamburg
* Germany
* tel. +49 (0) 40 42838 6185
* fax. +49 (0) 40 42838 2328
*
* Projekt zu Videoüberwachung: http://www.surveillance-studies.org
*
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