National Geographic introduces talking dictionaries

Digital technologies are the new lifesavers for languages on the verge of extinction; linguists unveiled eight new dictionaries at a major science conference in Vancouver, Gulf Daily News writes.

"We're turning the digital divide into a digital opportunity," said David Harrison, a National Geographic Fellow at Swarthmore College, near Philadelphia.

According to Dawn.com, more than half of some 7 000 languages alive today were considered on the verge of extinction within a century, “threatened by cultural changes, ethnic shame, government repression and other factors”, the scientists said.

But use of technologies, even by peoples without written languages, “is a heartening trend”, said Harrison. “Language extinction is not an inevitability.” Using social media, YouTube, text messaging, to expand their voice, expand their presence (is) the flip side of globalisation,” said Harrison.

The talking dictionaries initiative from the National Geographic Society's Enduring Voices project is an attempt to prevent these ancient languages being forgotten, Today Online notes.

Other dictionaries feature Matukar Panau, an Oceanic language from Papua New Guinea, which has only 600 surviving speakers. Even though they had never experienced the Internet, the Matukar Panau community asked for their language to be placed on the Web - it had never been recorded or written.