One of the World’s 7,000 Languages Dies Every Three Months. Can Apps Help Save Them?

One of the World’s 7,000 Languages Dies Every Three Months. Can Apps Help Save Them?

Like his ancestors, 65-year-old Clayton Long spent his childhood immersed in Navajo culture, greeting fellow clan members with old, breathful Navajo words like “Yá’át’ééh.” Then he was sent to an English-only boarding school where his native language, also known as Diné, was banned. “I went into a silent resistance,” Long says from his home in Blanding, Utah. He vowed that he would help to preserve it after he left the work he has done for about three decades as a teacher. This week, he’s entering new territory on that mission: the app store.

Long is one of the educators working with language-learning startup Duolingo on the company’s latest endeavor: using its popular app to revive threatened languages. On Oct. 8, celebrated in some places as Indigenous People’s Day, Duolingo will launch courses in both Navajo and Hawaiian, two of the estimated 3,150 languages that face doubts about their longterm survival. That’s nearly half of the estimated 7,000 languages spoken around the world.

Disponível em: https://time.com/5417035/technology-endangered-languages/ Acesso em: 29 jul. 2024.

Ao relatar suas vivências, Clayton Long destaca