Linguist’s Preservation Kit Has New Digital Tools

Languages have faced extinction throughout history. Often, it is the evolutionary forces of greater interconnectedness through trade and war that lead to the dominance of one spoken tongue. From Greek to Arabic to English, the language of traders has frequently become the lingua franca. This has led to a decline in the usage of other languages as individuals connect speaking a particular language – unconsciously or not – with social betterment. But linguists are now trying to preserve many dying languages through the help of technology and the internet. Field linguists are recording languages in digital format, which should ultimately preserve and allow greater proliferation and sharing of that language. Yet, such recording, storing and sharing is likely to be a catalyst for language change in and of itself: many of the regions from which these languages hail are distant from modern civilization and the speakers are unfamiliar with, let alone able to harness, the technology that is preserving their language. Moreover, the act of preserving a language that was traditionally oral by those that are not native speakers may lead to unique outcomes in the language’s trajectory. Hence, both the endangerment and preservation of many languages hinges on, and ultimately may be determined by, globalization. – YaleGlobal