Saving Languages Through Korean Soap Operas

About half of the world’s languages are at risk of falling into disuse in the near future. This rapid disappearance of languages is attributed to globalization, which has granted languages like English a special status of utility that rare languages do not share. Translators from entities like the Living Tongues Institute seeking to preserve endangered languages are working with “Viki,” a website that opens up movies and TV shows to crowd-sourced translation around the globe. “Viki has teamed up with the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages to encourage those who speak endangered languages to contribute their own translations of the shows,” reports Rose Eveleth for the Atlantic. The website has served as a symbol of globalized communities – Arabic and Hebrew speakers use the site to watch Korean TV shows, and a Thai drama on the website has gained major popularity with Spanish speakers. Now, linguists are harnessing that cross-cultural popularity to translate international TV shows into rare languages. Despite a time-consuming process and shortage of volunteers, the project leaders remain confident that the subtitled shows will increase accessibility and desire to maintain rare languages. – YaleGlobal