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Science & Technology

App to help save ancient language

By T.K. Randall
January 19, 2012 · Comment icon 6 comments

Image Credit: PD - Australia
Researchers are developing a smartphone application to help save a dying Aboriginal language.
Using a grant from the government one Australian researcher has been developing a smartphone application that will help save one of the country's top endangered languages. Currently spoken by only 150 individuals, the language will be kept alive by the app which will store enough information to allow future generations to be able to speak it.
The language of Iwaidja is thousands of years old but on Croker Island in the Top End only about 150 people still speak it. Iwaidja is one of about 50 known Aboriginal languages of Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory. Bruce Birch from the Minjilang Endangered Languages Project has been working with locals to try to save it.


Source: Australian Broadcasting Corporation | Comments (6)




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Recent comments on this story
Comment icon #1 Posted by Arawyn 12 years ago
IPHONE TO THE RESCUE! Saving languages in distress!
Comment icon #2 Posted by TheSpoonyOne 12 years ago
Languages survive based on how well the people who speak them adapt and how important they make themselves on the world stage, Mandarin is becoming a widely spoken language around the world because of its growing importance, at the same time Latin is no longer widely spoken because the Roman Empire diminished in importance, so seeing as I've never heard of Iwaidja, it clearly isn't important enough to be worth a massive effort to maintain. If the people who spoke it had spent the last few centuries building up a nation like Australia then maybe it would an important language, they didn't, so t... [More]
Comment icon #3 Posted by reggie2011 12 years ago
thats not true at all im an aussie and theres alot more people speaking it than 150 hahahaha lmao thats funny
Comment icon #4 Posted by Junior Chubb 12 years ago
Arawyn, an iPhone would be very useful on a walkabout. I wonder if Siri understands Iwaidja? Edit: Added a winky smiley
Comment icon #5 Posted by encouraged 12 years ago
Languages survive based on how well the people who speak them adapt and how important they make themselves on the world stage, Mandarin is becoming a widely spoken language around the world because of its growing importance, at the same time Latin is no longer widely spoken because the Roman Empire diminished in importance, so seeing as I've never heard of Iwaidja, it clearly isn't important enough to be worth a massive effort to maintain. If the people who spoke it had spent the last few centuries building up a nation like Australia then maybe it would an important language, they didn't, so t... [More]
Comment icon #6 Posted by Avanter 12 years ago
it can has a great success in Spain, where they keep some ancient, death, and inner country languages such a vasco, catalan, gallego, bable, murciano, valenciano, mallorquin, silbo, etc.


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