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Digital race to save languages
Digital race to save languages
By Andy Webster in Melbourne
Published: 2003/03/20 09:02:40
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/2857041.stm
Researchers are fighting against time to save decades of data on the
world's endangered languages from ending on the digital scrap heap.
Computer scientist and linguist Professor Steven Bird of Melbourne
University says most computer files, documents and original digital
recordings created more than 10 years ago are now virtually
irretrievable.
Linguists are worried because they have been enthusiastic digital
pioneers.
Attracted by ever smaller, lighter equipment and vastly improved
storage
capacity, field researchers have graduated from handwritten notes and
wire recordings to laptops, mini-discs, DAT tape and MP3.
"We are sitting between the onset of the digital era and the mass
extinction of the world's languages," said Prof Bird.
"The window of opportunity is small and shutting fast."
Languages disappearing
"The problem is we are unable to ensure the digital storage lasts for
more than five to 10 years because of problems with new media
formats,
new binary data formats used by software applications and the
possibility that magnetic storage just simply degrades over time,"
said
Professor Bird.
There are a number of initiatives across the world to ensure that
endangered languages are saved for future generations.
"Linguists estimate that if we don't do anything, half of the world's
languages will disappear in the next 100 years," said Professor Peter
Austin of the School of Oriental and Africa Studies at the University
of
London.
"There are currently about 6,500 languages in the world, so that's
3,000
languages completely going, lost forever," he told the BBC programme
Go
Digital.
Professor Bird is involved in the Open Language Archive Community
(OLAC), an attempt to create a international network of internet-
based
digital archives, using tailor-made software designed to be
future-proof.
"We're devising ways of storing linguistic information using XML or
Extensible Markup Language, which is basically a language for
representing data on the web," he said.
"XML is an open format that we can be sure will be accessible
indefinitely into the future."
Cultural sensitivities
Researchers across the world see the potential of XML, but are aware
of
the burden this places on them.
"When you record material in MP3 format now, what will happen in five
years' time when a new format comes along?" asked Prof Austin.
"The real challenge for us as archivists is to constantly upgrade the
video, audio and image files that we have so that they can be
integrated
with these new XML documents," he said.
There are problems, however, with using the internet as a storage
medium.
Many indigenous communities fear it could lead to unrestricted access
to
culturally sensitive material, such as sacred stories, which could be
abused or exploited, perhaps for commercial gain.
Professor Bird says linguists recognise it is not a good idea to put
sensitive material onto the internet without any safeguards.
"We are [looking at] the technologies used in internet banking for
secure transfer and control - right at the point this material is
first
captured."
In theory, a field researcher would enter information about future
restrictions as the material is recorded or written down and those
safeguards would accompany the recording right through the data
chain.
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