Role of Technology in Preservation and Revitalisation of Endangered Languages
Written by Bhavesh Neekhra and Chanda Grover
In today’s era, language usage is changing rapidly. Language is the means by which we pass our ideas, knowledge and identity from one generation to the next. But of the hundreds of languages currently spoken, it is expected that 50% will not survive the turn of the century. And when the last fluent speaker of a language dies, we will lose the centuries of knowledge and traditions that have helped shape who we are. Language loss is often related to oppression and injustice. India is one of unique countries in the world that exhibits the diversity of languages. People in different parts of the country speak more than one language from their birth and learn additional languages during their life-time. Therefore, multilingualism is the way of life in India. It has been observed there are minority of languages that are spoken by majority of people and majority of languages that are spoken by minority of people. These majority languages are also termed as scheduled languages. These minority of languages are spoken by small communities and for these communities, preservation of their language means restoration of their cultural identities, their values and their heritage. Therefore, it is vital to preserve and maintain the diversity of languages.
Though officially there are 122 languages in India, People’s Linguistic Survey of India has identified 780 languages, out of which about 600 are potentially endangered. 250 languages have already disappeared over past 60 years. The Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution lists 22 languages as scheduled languages, and has given the status of official encouragement. In addition, the Government of India has awarded the distinction of classical language to Kannada, Malayalam, Odia, Sanskrit, Tamil and Telugu. Classical language status is given to languages which have a rich heritage and independent nature. Though these scheduled and classical languages are spoken by millions of people in the country at various places at present. So, there is no danger for these languages to get extinct. But this has given rise to the endangerment of other minority languages in country because people have migrated to other languages.
The Constitution of India has also included the clause to protect these minority languages as a fundamental right. It states “Any section of the citizens residing in the territory of India or any part of thereof having a distinct language, script or culture of its own shall have the right to conserve the same.” The Government of India started giving top priority to teaching in mother tongues’, which will enable a child to develop its full potential. This concept is in total agreement with the 2017 theme of United Nations World Mother Language Day “to develop the potential of multilingual education to be acknowledged in education, administrative systems, cultural expression and cyber space”. Technology is also contributing in helping a man to learn different languages easily and conveniently by their own. Through technological interventions, people have started creating many apps to enable willing speakers to learn different languages in economic way e.g. “duolingo” is one app where one can learn a language for free. The language policy of India has been pluralistic, giving priority to the use of mother tongue in administration, education and other fields of mass communication.
The Language Bureau of Ministry of Human Resource Development has also set up some nodal agencies to implement and monitor the language policy. Post-independence, Government of India started “Central Institute of Indian Languages” (CIIL), in Mysore. It was assigned to carry out an in-depth survey of languages. Ministry has also initiated Technology Development for Indian Languages(TDIL) with the objective of developing information processing tools and techniques to facilitate human machine interaction without language barrier, creating and accessing multilingual knowledge resources. It also enables people with visual impairments to access the website using assistive technologies, such as screen readers, JAWS (Job Access with Speech). The tools provided by TDIL features for the most comprehensive information, the option to upload video, audio or documents, and share your knowledge and experiences.
Supporting the cause of promoting and conserving the language diversity in cyberspace, Union Minister of Electronic and Information Technology cautioned the Internet providers “the language of internet cannot be English and English alone. It must have linkages with the local and local means local languages. Under the vision of digital India, The Government of India has mandated the mobile phones sold from July 2017 to support all Indian languages. This will pave way for bridging the digital divide, empowering one billion people who do not speak English with connectivity in their own languages. This will also enhance the capacity of large number people to be part of e-governance and e- commerce.
Despite these efforts by the central government, minority languages are under threat of extinction due to multiple causes. In Andaman and Nicobar Islands, the death of Boa, the last speaker of Bo language is one of those instances that have led to extinction of Bo language with the history of 70,000 years.
We categorized basically three reasons why certain languages gain more popularity than the others. i) Easier syntactic structure, ii) patterns of political domination, and iii) use in the market place. If we take the help of technology in focusing these aspects for minority languages, then we can prevent extinction of such languages.
Since the number of people speaking diverse language are becoming rare, therefore many organizations have started new engagements to enable community and societies to take part in language preservation and conservation. There has been incorporation of various models in this activity like participating models for archiving, by involving speaker communities directly into archiving process, Community oriented models and integration of social media models. Not only this, people can also create their own app to maintain language diversity which is the part of cultural growth. e.g. LifeSpark is one such app. It provides tools to help with language preservation and revitalization. The majority of these tools are provided for free or very low cost which now makes it possible for nearly any community to create their own language app. This app is contributing towards language revitalization. Thanks to cheaper smartphones and an ocean of free and open source software — one can now record audio, take pictures and shoot videos in really good quality without spending anything on gears.
Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Samsung are also providing the tools to the people and the state governments to advance the local languages. E.g. google provides “Google Translator” to enable any person to translate a text written in any language to his/her own language online. Similarly, Samsung is leading the charge in providing phones with local language capabilities even while local leaders post their campaign signs in English. Google is revamping Andhra Pradesh’s IT system to make it Telugu input friendly. Google is working together with trusted organizations to help stop their disappearance. Microsoft initiated “Local Language Program” in 2012, which enables 1.7 billion people worldwide to access technology in their own language, while striving to preserve those local languages and cultural identities. Hence, to promote the communication in one’s language, various organizations, societies, communities, technology etc. are contributing their part and helping to maintain and preserve the language diversity.
In conclusion, though the problem is severe, we also have tools to mitigate the danger of language disappearance. The need of the hour is to involve various stakeholders from government to grassroot communities and through effective coordination, work towards preservation and revitalisation of these endangered languages.
To know more about Indian Languages https://mhrd.gov.in/sites/upload_files/mhrd/files/upload_document/languagebr.pdf