Internet-Linguistics

UNESCO encourages Governments to participate in the next meeting of ICANN 06-06-2008 (Paris) © iStock UNESCO encourages Governments to participate in the next meeting of the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), to be held in Paris from 22 to 26 June 2008, in Le Meridien Montparnasse (19, rue du Commandant Mouchotte, 75014 Paris). The GAC plays a key role in guiding public policy issues discussed within ICANN, particularly with regard to the development of Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs). IDNs are the Internet domain names that could contain letters with diacritics, such as accent marks, or characters from non-Latin scripts. Currently the Internet domain names, for example “unesco.org" or “louvre.fr”, can contain only Latin scripts. UNESCO is committed to actively participating in the development of IDNs as part of its broader commitment to promote universal access to information, and cultural and linguistic diversity in cyberspace. Membership of the GAC is open to all representatives of Governments, public authorities as well as intergovernmental organizations. For more information on ICANN and GAC, and to register for the Paris meeting, please click here

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The Youth Caucus gives a passionate statement for the protection and survival of Indigenous languages. Category:  Nonprofits & Activism Tags:  Native  American  UN  Climate  Change  Permanent  Forum  on  indigenous  Issues  Indians  Non-profit  Foundation  languages  youth 

Informative conversation with K. David Harrison, assistant professor of linguistics at Swarthmore College near Philadelphia and the author of the new book "When Languages Die: The Extinction of the World's Languages and the Erosion of Human Knowledge". He is the Director of Research at the Living Tongues Institute and was recently featured in the documentary called "The Linguists" which followed hands-on linguistic field work in countries around the world. In this fascinating interview, Harrison discusses the critical importance of the world's many threatened languages and the vital knowledge that each language uniquely packages and holds for all of us. Harrison also discusses the need for more trained linguistic personnel to go out into some of the remotest parts of the world to document these nearly extinct languages before they are lost to humanity forever

Descendents of semi-nomadic tribesman who conquered China in the 17th century, they are the last living link to a language that for more than two-and-a-half centuries was the official voice of the Qing Dynasty, the final imperial house to rule from Beijing and one of the richest and most powerful empires the world has known. With the passing of these villagers, Manchu will also die, experts say.

Like a biologist gathering the specimens of an endangered species, the linguist Siripen Ungsitipoonporn sits in a bamboo hut taking down Chong words from a native speaker. Sarong- clad Chinpanpai, 62, whose bronzed skin and wavy hair mark her as belonging to the Chong, is helping Siripen compile the first Chong dictionary. She is one of the 3,000 or so speakers in their community fluent in Chong, roughly one fifth of the tribe.Today, Chong is taught three times a week in the tribe's primary schools. As a result, many schoolchildren can now speak a smattering of their mother tongue. "I was embarrassed to speak it, I felt just like a dot of ink among others," says Chen Phanpai, a former village head, when asked about the success of the language revitalization program. "But now I feel unique because nobody else speaks Chong."Sheldon Shaeffer, director of Unesco's Asia and Pacific Regional Bureau for Education, says that "Learning their mother tongue makes minorities more confident in themselves, and more approving of government initiatives."

LISRC, one of six university research centres at CityU, aims to foster interdisciplinary research in the diverse areas of linguistics, natural language processing and information science. It provides a forum for experienced researchers and young scholars to work together on problems of language and information technology in Chinese speech communities, to play a major role in advancing language information sciences globally, to provide a new and useful bridge between technology and the humanities and social sciences, and to inform the community about relevant research findings, especially within the Chinese context.

"This is probably one language that cannot be brought back, but at least we made a record of it," Anderson said, noting that the Aborigine who spoke it strained to recall words he had heard from his father, now dead. Many of the 113 languages in the region from the Andes Mountains into the Amazon basin are poorly known and are giving way to Spanish or Portuguese, or in a few cases, a more dominant indigenous language. In this area, for example, a group known as the Kallawaya use Spanish or Quechua in daily life, but also have a secret tongue mainly for preserving knowledge of medicinal plants, some previously unknown to science. "How and why this language has survived for more than 400 years, while being spoken by very few, is a mystery," Harrison said in a news release. The dominance of English threatens the survival of the 54 indigenous languages in the Northwest Pacific plateau, a region including British Columbia, Washington and Oregon. Only one person remains who knows Siletz Dee-ni, the last of many languages once spoken on a reservation in Oregon.

Technology to the "Rescue" of Endangered Languages  InvestigatorsW S Y Wang (PI), Benjamin K Tsou  Funding SourceCompetitive Earmarked Research Grant by the Research Grant Council (Hong Kong)  Project durationDec 1996 - Sep 1998 Because of the great numerical superiority of the Han ethnic group, over 95% of all Chinese, people tend to forget that there are over a hundred other ethnic groups as well in China. Like the Hans, most of these groups trace back to the dim mist of prehistory. Beijing has officially recognised only 55 of them; this gross under-estimate is due to socio-political complications as well as lack of comprehen-sive information. Experts all agree that the real number is at least twice as high. Many of these groups are disappearing fast, especially the ones that have not been officially recognised so far. The table below shows a few of these groups in South China. The data are extracted from a lecture by Professor Sun Hongkai, of the Institute of Nationalities in Beijing, given at RCL in October 1996. While the greatest concentration of these groups is in Yunnan, they can be found throughout South China.

  Technology to the "Rescue" of Endangered Languages  InvestigatorsW S Y Wang (PI), Benjamin K Tsou  Funding SourceCompetitive Earmarked Research Grant by the Research Grant Council (Hong Kong)  Project durationDec 1996 - Sep 1998 Because of the great numerical superiority of the Han ethnic group, over 95% of all Chinese, people tend to forget that there are over a hundred other ethnic groups as well in China. Like the Hans, most of these groups trace back to the dim mist of prehistory. Beijing has officially recognised only 55 of them; this gross under-estimate is due to socio-political complications as well as lack of comprehen-sive information. Experts all agree that the real number is at least twice as high. Many of these groups are disappearing fast, especially the ones that have not been officially recognised so far. The table below shows a few of these groups in South China. The data are extracted from a lecture by Professor Sun Hongkai, of the Institute of Nationalities in Beijing, given at RCL in October 1996. While the greatest concentration of these groups is in Yunnan, they can be found throughout South China.

Revitalizing Indigenous Languages (1998) "SPEAKING IN TONGUES: As Telecommunications, Tourism and Trade Make the World a Smaller Place, Languages Are Dying at an Alarming Rate," by James Geary, Time International Edition, July 7, 1997

Table of Contents Publication Information Repatriated Bones, Unrepatriated Spirits Richard Littlebear Introduction: Some Basics of Indigenous Language Revitalization Jon Reyhner Obstacles and Opportunities for Language Revitalization 1. Some Rare and Radical Ideas for Keeping Indigenous Languages Alive Richard Littlebear 2. Running the Gauntlet of an Indigenous Language Program Steve Greymorning Language Revitalization Efforts and Approaches 3. Sm’algyax Language Renewal: Prospects and Options Daniel S. Rubin 4. Reversing Language Shift: Can Kwak’wala Be RevivedStan J. Anonby 5. Using TPR-Storytelling to Develop Fluency and Literacy in Native American LanguagesGina P. Cantoni 6. Documenting and Maintaining Native American Languages for the 21st Century: The Indiana University Model Douglas R. Parks, Julia Kushner, Wallace Hooper, Francis Flavin, Delilah Yellow Bird, Selena Ditmar * Native Language for Every Subject: The Cree Language of Instruction Project Barbara Burnaby, Marguerite MacKenzie, Luci Bobbish Salt The Role of Writing in Language Revitalization 7. The Place of Writing in Preserving an Oral Language Ruth Bennett, Pam Mattz, Silish Jackson, Harold Campbell 8. Indigenous Language Codification: Cultural Effects Brian Bielenberg Using Technology in Language Revitalization 9. Enhancing Language Material Availability Using Computers Mizuki Miyashita and Laura A. Moll 10. The New Mass Media and the Shaping of Amazigh Identity Amar Almasude 11. Self-Publishing Indigenous Language Materials Robert N. St. Clair, John Busch, B. Joanne Webb

Linguistic Diversity and the Preservation of Endangered Languages   While many of us worry about the increasing loss of biodiversity from our planet, another kind of diversity loss – less widely publicised but equally disturbing – is affecting the world’s languages and cultures. Over the course of this century, many spoken languages, especially minority languages... more

50 Awesome Open Source Resources for Online Writers Published on Tuesday April 29th , 2008By Christina Laun With the popularity of blogging and online journals, writers working in the online realm have a growing number of opportunities all the time to practice and refine their craft, and maybe even get paid for it. And if you're working online, why not take advantage of all the opportunities to get great free and open source resources that can help you to write, edit and organize your work? Here's a list of fifty open source tools that you can use to make your writing even better.

We will release more product lines in other African languages soon. We believe in what we do, and we think that African children should be able to learn their native languages, with as much fun as they will learn the English language. What we intend is to make learning native language as much fun as possible. Basically, all our materials are interactive, and we are confident that this approach will work to great effect.” The Executive Director of the African Languages Technology Initiative, Dr Tunde Adegbola also expresses the hope that the product line "is coming at a time when wide debate over the importance of our indigenous languages is being argued.” While this approach to learning African languages may seem relatively new, Otitoloju expresses that she is confident that these product lines will translate into increased applications from these groups.” CONCEPT Blazing Ideas Blazing Ideas Limited was established for the advancement and dissemination of African Indigenous Languages with particular emphasis on Nigerian Languages through several interactive media and materials.The company intends to design, develop, publish and distribute globally, innovative electronic language learning solutions on handheld devices, memory media cards, and via internet downloads. As an international quality African-language publishing house and a market and business research firm, Blazing Ideas has license to publish, in electronic format, reference titles, including monolingual dictionaries, bilingual dictionaries, encyclopaedias, and various other education and trade publications. Blazing Ideas is founded by Dr. Lolade Otitoloju. She is a graduate of College of Medicine, University of Ibadan (M.B.B.S) with a Diploma in Tropical Medicine & Infectious Diseases and Masters in Public Health from the University of London (London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine).

May 28, 2008,  2:46 pm What Will Globalization Do to Languages? A Freakonomics Quorum By Stephen J. Dubner The headline says it all, although the unspoken question is: will globalization indeed result in the hegemony of English, as has long been promised/threatened? We gathered up some wise people who spend their time thinking about such things — Christian Rolling, Mark Liberman, Henry Hitchings, and John Hayden — and asked them to answer our question. Many thanks for their insights.

Semantic Web to revolutionise internet search The future of the web has arrived. Earlier this month, internet startup Powerset revealed its Semantic Web search service - a way of searching that should provide users with a more satisfying experience. In theory, the Semantic Web allows computers to search all the content on the web through the collaborative use of information. In practice, Powerset is limited to searching Wikipedia. But this first version at least provides a taster of semantic-based searching, showing how users can search via conversational techniques rather than keywords. More importantly, Powerset shows a significant step towards a more intuitive web experience. Such movement should be welcomed, especially as the concept of the Semantic Web has previously been more niche than mainstream.

ENDANGERED LANGUAGES on FILM, VIDEO & DVD SURVEY This overview lists, comments and links to a majority, I believe, of the available TV/Film/Web-documentaries and features in/on endangered languages. You'll find more than 100 below. May the diversity of approaches presented here inspire more films from more countries on this truly glocal issue: the current catastrophic reduction of Humanity's linguistic and cultural diversity.

Chapter 21, Teaching Indigenous Languages edited by Jon Reyhner (pp. 148-262). Flagstaff, AZ: Northern Arizona University. Copyright 1997 by Northern Arizona University. Return to Table of Contents Four Successful Indigenous Language Programs Dawn B. Stiles

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