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Issue #34 News and Tips for a Multilingual World August 2010
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Languages Are Dying
Why we should care

steven colbert interviews k. david harrison
"Good news, America, we are winning!" That’s how satirical TV news commentator Stephen Colbert greeted the news that over half of the world’s 7,000 languages may disappear by 2100. Colbert’s interview subject that night, linguist K. David Harrison, strongly disagrees. He says that "there is a significant knowledge base that’s eroding, that’s going extinct with these languages." We interviewed Harrison recently about his work.

Harrison is the research director of the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages as well as an associate professor at Swarthmore College. He has spent his entire career studying, and trying to help preserve, endangered languages, most of which are not written. His appearance on The Colbert Report was in connection with the publication of his book When Languages Die: The Extinction of the World's Languages and the Erosion of Human Knowledge (Oxford University Press 2007).

Harrison has been busy since 2007. The Linguists, a film in which he co-stars with Living Tongues director Gregory Anderson, was an official selection of the 2008 Sundance Film Festival and is up for an Emmy Award. His next book, The Last Speakers: The Quest to Save the World’s Most Endangered Languages, is scheduled for publication by Random House in September. And the Institute’s collaborative project with National Geographic, Enduring Voices, has provided other outlets and means of support for his work.

Lost Languages, Lost Knowledge
So, what does it matter if some obscure language that we’ve never heard of becomes extinct? According to Harrison we are losing a chunk of the knowledge that is our human heritage - knowledge that may turn out to be very important. He gives the example of the Yupik people of Alaska who have lived above the Arctic Circle for thousands of years and know more about Arctic Sea ice than climatologists. They have 99 different terms for Arctic Sea ice, each one of which "encodes very detailed knowledge about the color of the ice, the texture of the ice, the meteorological conditions under which it forms, what it’s good for, what kind of animals are found on it, can it be walked on…." This is knowledge that could be very useful in the study of climate change.

Harrison with the Kallawaya
Or, to take another example from Harrison’s own work: The Kallawaya people of Bolivia, who are featured in the film, The Linguists. "They know the uses of thousands of plants for medicinal purposes that they have developed through a process of experimentation, and this again is an oral knowledge base, it’s not written down." "Something like 75% of all the drugs currently used to treat cancer are derived from plants," Harrison notes, "and who is it that discovered those plants? It wasn't only pharmaceutical companies, it was the indigenous people who have been experimenting with those plants for a long time and naming them and classifying them and understanding them." We have benefited whether we were aware of it or not.

The Institute’s Work
Harrison in Matugar
The Linguists deals with the Institute’s work in recording dying languages for posterity. But the Institute also helps communities who want to revitalize their own languages. The Institute works with local communities to carry out their wishes – helping develop a writing system; producing the first books in a language; training local language activists. Harrison gets particularly excited when he talks about projects that bring these languages to the internet in the form of things like talking dictionaries. He calls this "helping languages to cross the digital divide." In a new departure, he just launched an iPhone application - a talking dictionary of the Tuvan language of central Siberia.

Last year, the Institute began working with the Matugar community in Papua, New Guinea. They produced the first book in the language - which had not previously been written - and have launched a talking dictionary. The Institute also bought the village, which has only had electricity for about 6 months, its first computer. Harrison says

My dream is that as soon as they get internet – sometime within the next 12 months or so - the little children in that village, who are really right on the cusp of making a crucial decision – are they going to keep their heritage language or are they going to abandon it - the first time they go on the internet they’re going to see the talking dictionary in their language, they’re going to hear recordings, they’re going to see that their own language is basically a viable player in the information age in the internet; that it has a presence; that it is just as suited for internet as any other language – even though it only has 300 or so speakers.

Not so long ago, English dominated the internet, but that has been changing rapidly. The recent addition of totally non-Latin domain names may accelerate this trend. Now, linguists like K. David Harrison are using the web to help save endangered languages and preserve linguistic diversity and the knowledge that comes with it.

At MTM LinguaSoft, we understand the value of language diversity and applaud the work of The Living Tongues Institute in helping to keep alive and record these irreplaceable resources.

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Reader Response

In response to our July email about the Dictionary of American Regional English, one of our readers sent in her favorite saying from her husband, a "born and bred Southerner": Load the wagon, don’t worry about the mule (when troubles pile up....)

Recent Projects

Video for Foreign Markets
wine bottles

Wine Gadgets LLC produces Wine Saver PRO™, a system used in restaurants for preserving wine after the bottles have been opened. They needed their product information translated into French and German for foreign customers. MTM LinguaSoft translated and did the desktop publishing for the user manual and troubleshooting guide. We also translated the script for their promotional video and provided foreign language voice-over recordings in the two languages.

C'est What?

Sound Effects
cover of German translation of the Terry Pratchett novel 'Thud'

Imagine translating the "POW," "BAM," and "THONK" of a comic book into another language. Since they are attempts to reproduce sounds, do they need to be translated? Actually, the same set of letters won’t suggest the same sounds universally, especially since the pronunciation will vary tremendously from language to language. To illustrate, Derek Abbott at the University of Adelaide has put together the "world’s biggest multilingual list of animal sounds." If there is no clear equivalent, sometimes you have to make something up. The Terry Pratchett novel Thud, for example, ended up as Klonk in German.
Tips

Help Bring the World Cup to Philly
The Philadelphia Sports Congress is seeking signatures in support of its bid to bring the World Cup to Philadelphia in 2018 or 2022. Philadelphia is currently ranked 8th on the list of 18 cities vying to host matches. Ultimately 12-15 cities are expected to serve as hosts for a World Cup in the U.S. You can cast your vote by texting "Phillybid" to 22442 or go to thegameisinphiladelphia.com to vote online.

Drupal Translation Module
In another sign of the demand for bilingual and multilingual websites, Drupal, the open source content management system for websites, recently introduced a translation management module that allows content managers to assign translation tasks to individual translators who can then access and translate the content online. The module is in beta version right now and Drupal is looking for feedback. By the way, MTM can help you manage translations on any website, including a Drupal-based site.