Endangered Language Research Articles

Distractive language education policies and the endangerment of Indigenous languages in Bangladesh

ABSTRACT Focusing on language education policies in Bangladesh, this article shows how the policies have distracted people’s attention from the harms inflicted on the country’s Indigenous communities and their languages. I discuss two factors that have contributed to policy distractions in this context: a strong form of Bangla linguistic nationalism and a neoliberal approach to English language teaching. To address the problem of language education policy distractions, I put forward an argument for paying attention to what matters the most for protecting linguistic human rights and fostering linguistic diversity. Paying such transformative attention will require a mother-tongue-based multilingual approach to education and the creation of territorial niches for protecting and promoting endangered languages.

Digital Empowerment for Indigenous Communities Using Generative Artificial Intelligence

Objective - Indigenous communities face various challenges, including marginalization, loss of cultural heritage, language endangerment, health disparities, and economic inequities. Digitalization, empowered by Artificial Intelligence (AI), offers transformative solutions for preserving and revitalizing indigenous knowledge systems and improving the quality of life for these communities. Methodology/Technique – This review critically examines the impact of digitalization and AI on indigenous populations, focusing on culture, language, health, and economic status. It evaluates both the positive outcomes and the potential biases introduced by AI technologies. Finding – By exploring the application of Generative AI, this review extends existing studies and demonstrates its capability to mitigate biases and enrich our understanding of Indigenous cultures. The review identifies the dual narrative present in existing research, the beneficial effects of digitalization and AI, and the potential for bias. Novelty – This study uniquely focuses on the dual narrative of AI impacts, particularly the potential for Generative AI to mitigate biases, offering new insights into the intersection of digitalization and Indigenous knowledge systems. Type of Paper: Review JEL Classification: O33, I15, Z13, L86 Keywords: indigenous communities, artificial intelligence, deep learning, large language, models, digitalization, decolonial AI, ethical artificial intelligence. Reference to this paper should be referred to as follows: Srivastava, S; Upadhyay, P. (2024). Digital Empowerment for Indigenous Communities Using Generative Artificial Intelligence, GATR-Global J. Bus. Soc. Sci. Review, 12(2), 74–82. https://doi.org/10.35609/gjbssr.2024.12.2(3)

What About the Indigenous Languages of the Plains?: The Case of Kurukh in Bangladesh

ABSTRACT More than 30 indigenous linguistic communities live in Bangladesh. Many of these languages are at risk of endangerment as the speakers see the functionality of their mother tongues diminish gradually. The purpose of the study is to examine the linguistic scenario of Kurukh, one of the indigenous languages spoken in the north-western parts of Bangladesh, with references to some of the essential concepts in relation to language shift and vitality. The author conducted a sociolinguistic survey with five groups of adult community members and four school-going children. Four notable community members were separately interviewed on a semi-structured questionnaire. The data were thematically analysed to understand the factors at play in shaping the status of Kurukh in Bangladesh. In a context of language endangerment, the study has significant implications for the policymakers as well as the community members as it provides insights into the language dynamics and the community aspirations.

The Chukchi Influence on Chaplinski Yupik

Abstract Chaplinski Yupik (also often referred to as Siberian Yupik), a critically endangered Eskimo language spoken on the Bering coast in the north-eastern Siberia, shows numerous traces of language contact with Chukchi. A striking example is Chaplinski Yupik personal names, a significant part of which have Chukchi origin. In this study Chaplinski Yupik names are analyzed based on the genealogies of Chaplinski Yupik people compiled in 1970–1980s. The article focuses on phonological and grammatical adaptation of Chukchi names in Chaplinski Yupik. The case of personal names clearly reflects the history of Chukchi-Yupik language contact in the area – from an asymmetrical contact situation (the knowledge of Chukchi was common among Yupik speakers but not vice versa) and regarding Chukchi as a more prestigious language to a gradual loss of Chukchi-Yupik bilingualism by the end of the 20th century.

Language experts on a sinking island: critiquing language endangerment rhetorics through participation in and around a tabletop game

ABSTRACT The participatory study of language addresses the unequal relationships between the ‘researcher’ and the ‘researched’. As part of this undertaking, university-based researchers seek to develop more accessible ways of knowledge production to involve other participants in the creation of novel forms of representation at the levels relevant to them. The university-based participants of our research addressed this challenge by co-designing a language-centred tabletop game together with participants from a Romanian multilingual village. Bringing their language expertise into action, all participants collaboratively represented, analysed, and reflected on marginalised local language practices. The game was the culmination of several years of participatory research and aimed to explore interpretations of practices that are widely discussed as threatened, allowing for a critical approach to language endangerment rhetorics. Drawing on the ethnographic analysis of eight sessions in which players engaged with each other and the tabletop game’s creators, this article argues that developing innovative multimodal representations of language on the margins can make new knowledge more accessible, but in itself does not guarantee the subversion of language endangerment rhetorics. To have an impact on well-established discourses, the language experts’ participation throughout the research process is needed.

The Verbal System of Baritle Neo-Aramaic

Abstract This paper presents a comprehensive study of verbal inflection in the Neo-Aramaic dialect of Baritle (northern Iraq). Similar to other Semitic languages, Baritle uses ‘root and pattern’ morphology and verb roots are generally triliteral. Whereas the core structures of the Baritle verb system align with those found in other North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic languages, Baritle exhibits distinctive variations in several noteworthy aspects. This study of the verbal inflection of Baritle identifies the inflections by number and type. It finds that the verb in Baritle has different functional categories indicating tense, aspect, and mood. It also finds that the verb has various bound pronominals representing the grammatical categories of person, number, and gender of its arguments. This paper documents an endangered language and contributes to the typology of the grammar of natural languages.

Revitalising Endangered Languages: Challenges, Successes, and Cultural Implications

Language is a cornerstone of cultural identity, yet many of the world's languages are at risk of disappearing, either historically or as a result of deliberate actions by aggressive neighboring states, if not appropriately addressed. This paper examined worldwide endeavors to safeguard endangered languages and the cultural customs interwoven with them, using a case study of Ukraine and Russia. By conducting quantitative and qualitative analyses of the obtained data, the study focused on the case study design, based on document analysis, semi-structured interviews, and structured surveys. The findings highlighted the key successes in language revitalisation, mainly focusing on educational initiatives and technology-based solutions. Efforts such as community-led language schools, language documentation projects, and digital platforms have demonstrated potential in maintaining Ukrainian as a presently endangered language in territories militarily occupied by Russia and previously annexed areas, providing direct communication channels to counter an aggressor's objectives. Additionally, the role of government policies and international organisations in supporting language preservation was analysed, revealing how collaborative approaches can foster linguistic and cultural resilience. Significant challenges were identified. These challenges encompassed inadequate funding and limited local and global community engagement, and the complex dynamics of cultural assimilation because of fear and threat to life in the occupied lands. Moreover, the impact of language extinction on the cultural survival of minority groups (those few Ukrainian speaking or bilingual – Ukrainian and Russian, speaking people with the core values of the Ukrainian culture and identity) is profound, often leading to a loss of unique worldviews, oral traditions, and identity. The paper concluded with recommendations for future initiatives in language revitalisation, emphasising the need for holistic approaches that integrate the cultural understanding, technology, and community empowerment. It was contended that by tackling these issues, stakeholders can play a role in preserving not just languages but also the diverse tapestry of cultures they embody.

Investigation of the Linguistic Landscape of Local People at ‘’Pantura”

Indonesia, with about 700 regional languages, is considered one of the most linguistically diverse countries in the world. The imposition of a national language and the global dominance of English constitute a danger to multilingualism. This article explores the utilization and manipulation of language in Cirebon by applying social semiotics in linguistic landscape studies. We juxtapose the conventional signage seen on government buildings with that of private enterprises, such as restaurants and retail. The national/regional language policy acknowledges the existence of tensions between macro and micro language policies, which pertain to the rights of private and individual language choice. The conflicts are analyzed. The investigation uncovers a clear and discernible arrangement in the linguistic environment, where public signs prominently showcase Indonesian, Javanese, and English languages, while personal signs exhibit Indonesian, English, as well as other foreign languages such as Korean, Japanese, and Mandarin. The research indicates that language choices are not random, emphasizing that the linguistic environment is a powerful instrument for rejuvenating endangered local languages, such as Javanese.

Tone, viewpoint aspect, and imperative mood

We examine the interaction between viewpoint aspect and imperative mood in an under-described and endangered Edoid language of West Africa. In Emai, tone functions both lexically and grammatically. Verbs in citation form, including bisyllabic items, are toneless. In declarative mood Emai distinguishes perfective from imperfective, with perfective assigning high tone to a verb and imperfective assigning low. Imperative mood takes perfective aspect, most clearly evident when an auxiliary or preverb precedes the verb or when the imperative is negated. In simpler imperatives, verb tone is low high. The low tone is conditioned by the juxtaposition of a subject phrase that shows a second person pronoun with high tone and a verb phrase whose initial syllable is high. Across phrasal constitutents, consecutive high tones, as they would have appeared in simpler imperatives, are prohibited. It is the verb phrase initial high syllable that lowers.

Disjunction in Ket

We explore how disjunction is expressed in Ket, an understudied and highly endangered Yeniseian language of Siberia. We show that Ket has multiple strategies of disjunction, which share morphological resources with indefinites and which differ in their scope-taking properties. We present a preliminary analysis and discuss the broader typology, showing that while Ket’s system of disjunction resembles those of Sinhala (Indic; Sri Lanka) and Tiwa (Tibeto-Burman; India), it differs from these systems in several respects. We conclude that multiple disjunction strategies appear to be widespread, but show significant variation, and require additional investigation cross-linguistically.

Community Displacement and Language Shift (In Reference to the Khamyang Community of Assam)

Language extinction has become a global crisis at the present time. Linguists and sociologists across the world have shown concern about this matter. A report says that every fourteen days, a language vanishes. However, language extinction does not always mean that native speakers of the languages are dead. Language Shifting is another cause of language extinction. The root cause of language shift is mainly discussed from a social perspective. Language endangerment may result from external forces, such as military, economic, religious, cultural, or educational subjugation. Thus, negative attitudes towards one’s own language may be an internal cause of a community. Sociolinguists have found that various factors seem to correlate with language shifting and diminishing in size. Voluntary or forced migration to a location outside their traditional territory has been a major cause for a community to change their language. Generally, minority people who migrate to other places sooner or later shift to the new dominant language. The present paper is a study on a small minority group, named Khamyang, living in Upper Assam, to discuss how the displacement compelled them to shift their language.

Multi-class identification of tonal contrasts in Chokri using supervised machine learning algorithms

This study examines and explores the effectiveness of various Machine Learning Algorithms (MLAs) in identifying intricate tonal contrasts in Chokri (ISO 639-3), an under-documented and endangered Tibeto-Burman language of the Sino-Tibetan language family spoken in Nagaland, India. Seven different supervised MLAs, viz., [Logistic Regression (LR), Decision Tree (DT), Random Forest (RF), Support Vector Machine (SVM), K-Nearest Neighbors (KNN), Naive Bayes (NB)], and one neural network (NN)-based algorithms [Artificial Neural Network (ANN)] are implemented to explore five-way tonal contrasts in Chokri. Acoustic correlates of tonal contrasts, encompassing fundamental frequency fluctuations, viz., f0 height and f0 direction, are examined. Contrary to the prevailing notion of NN supremacy, this study underscores the impressive accuracy achieved by the RF. Additionally, it reveals that combining f0 height and directionality enhances tonal contrast recognition for female speakers, while f0 directionality alone suffices for male speakers. The findings demonstrate MLAs’ potential to attain accuracy rates of 84–87% for females and 95–97% for males, showcasing their applicability in deciphering the intricate tonal systems of Chokri. The proposed methodology can be extended to predict multi-class problems in diverse fields such as image processing, speech classification, medical diagnosis, computer vision, and social network analysis.

Associated motion, associated posture and imperfective aspect in Tacana (Amazonian Bolivia)

Abstract This paper is the first detailed description of the exceptionally rich subsystem of verbal inflections that express imperfective aspect in Tacana, an endangered and underdescribed language from the Takanan family. The unusually high degree of elaboration of this system, which includes nine members in paradigmatic opposition, is achieved by co-expressing imperfective aspect with spatial meanings taken from two distinct categories: associated motion (with five values: ‘going’, ‘coming’, ‘going back’, ‘coming back’, ‘wandering’) and what I will call “associated posture” (with three values: ‘standing’, ‘lying/bending’, ‘hanging’). The ninth member is a default imperfective marker that does not carry any spatial meaning. The paper challenges linguistic theories that consider grammatical(izable) concepts as belonging to a strictly limited range of notional domains from which motion and posture are excluded. Additionally, the paper provides strong support for a new comparative concept of “associated posture” in linguistics.

Ainu–Japanese Bi-directional Neural Machine Translation: A Step Towards Linguistic Preservation of Ainu, An Under-Resourced Indigenous Language in Japan

This study presents a groundbreaking approach to preserving the Ainu language, recognized as critically endangered by UNESCO, by developing a bi-directional neural machine translation (MT) system between Ainu and Japanese. Utilizing the Marian MT framework, known for its effectiveness with resource-scarce languages, the research aims to overcome the linguistic complexities inherent in Ainu's polysynthetic structure. The paper delineates a comprehensive methodology encompassing data collection from diverse Ainu text sources, meticulous preprocessing, and the deployment of neural MT models, culminating in the achievement of significant SacreBLEU scores that underscore the models' translation accuracy. The findings illustrate the potential of advanced MT technology to facilitate linguistic preservation and educational endeavors, advocating for integrating such technologies in safeguarding endangered languages. This research not only underscores the critical role of MT in bridging language divides but also sets a precedent for employing computational linguistics to preserve cultural and linguistic heritage.

Prosodic Change in Breton: The Loss of Stressed Clitics1

AbstractMost dialects of Breton have largely penultimate stress, and are also said to exhibit stress on certain clitics when they precede monosyllabic content words. However, data suggest that this prosodic process may not be maintained consistently by modern Breton speakers. This study explores the nature of clitic stress in Breton and investigates its potential loss by examining the indefinite article, low numerals and the adverb re ‘too’ in three pre‐existing corpora: two linguistic atlases and a more recent online repository of Breton recordings. The findings show that the loss of stressed clitics is greater in south‐eastern Brittany, and more advanced for the indefinite article than for other contexts. It is suggested that this is due to the fact that the process does not occur with the definite article, and that the clitics are being reanalysed such that they have a less cohering relationship with their hosts. Given the unstable nature of Breton as an endangered language with a high proportion of older speakers, it is unclear whether this ongoing language change will continue along the same path, or if revitalisation is likely either to halt or accelerate it.

Ensuring Linguistic Sustainability in Bangladesh: Challenges and Approaches

This study investigates the obstacles to language sustainability in Bangladesh, which boasts a wealth of linguistic diversity, and proposes a comprehensive plan to support this variety. The study begins with an examination of Bangladesh’s linguistic demographics, highlighting the multitude of languages spoken by the country’s various ethnic communities. It then delves into the historical context of language movements in Bangladesh and illustrates how language serves as a crucial marker of identity and unity. Subsequently, this research explores the socioeconomic, political, and educational factors that contribute to language endangerment and change. It discusses the consequences of these changes on cultural identity, transmission of knowledge, and community well-being. This study proposes a comprehensive framework for language sustainability in Bangladesh, emphasising five key components: documentation and revitalisation of endangered languages, implementation of comprehensive multilingual education policies, utilisation of modern technology in language preservation, promotion of cross-cultural understanding through exchange programs, and national policy support for language rights and diversity. These initiatives aim to enhance linguistic sustainability, foster social cohesion, and empower marginalised communities. This study argues that by addressing these challenges and adopting these strategies, Bangladesh can secure a sustainable linguistic future and preserve its diverse cultural heritage.

Comparison of Adam Optimization and RMS prop in Minangkabau-Indonesian Bidirectional Translation with Neural Machine Translation

Language is a tool humans use to establish communication. Still, the language used is one language and between regions or nations with their languages. Indonesia is a country that has a diversity of second languages and is the fourth most populous country in the world. It is recorded that Indonesia has nearly 800 regional languages, but research activities in natural language processing are still lacking. Minangkabau is an endangered language spoken by the Minangkabau people in Indonesia's West Sumatra province. According to UNESCO, the Minangkabau language is listed as a language that is "definitely endangered," with only around 5 million speakers worldwide. This study uses neural machine translation (NMT) to create a formula based on this information. Neural machine translation, in contrast to conventional statistical machine translation, intends to build a single neural network that can be built up to achieve the best performance. Because it can simultaneously hold memory for a long time, comprehend complicated relationships in data, and provide information that is very important in determining the outcome of translation, LSTM is one of the most powerful machine-learning techniques for translating languages. The BLUE score is utilized in the NMT evaluation. The test results use 520 Minangkabau sentences, conducting tests based on the number of epochs ranging from 100-1000, resulting in optimization using Adam being better than optimization RMSprop. This is evidenced by the results of the best BLUE-1 score of 0.997816 using 1000 epochs.

Review of MacLeod & Smith-Christmas (2018): Gaelic in contemporary Scotland: the revitalisation of an endangered language

Review of MacLeod & Smith-Christmas (2018): Gaelic in contemporary Scotland: the revitalisation of an endangered language

Bridging the gap between theory and implementation: National language policy and documentation of mother tongue

Language is an essential aspect of identity and culture, playing a significant role in shaping a nation's socio-political landscape. This is why nations are continuously making effort to preserve their indigenous languages. This paper investigates the grey area of theory and implementation of the national language policy in the preservation, revitalization, documentation of mother tongue. It discusses the challenges such as lack of adequate instructional materials and qualified teachers in indigenous language, facing indigenous languages in Nigeria and how the implementation of language national language policy can promote mother tongue revitalization beyond the classroom. The paper adopts Language ecology model and David Crystal's theory of language revitalization to investigate the study. The paper adopts descriptive analysis methodology, which will use current and historical data to identify gaps in the study. The paper concludes that bridging the gap between theory and implementation of national language policy in Nigeria is a complex but a necessary and essential national task that involves the government allocating resources to produce adequate instructional materials and training teachers to be qualified in teaching indigenous languages. Also government and stakeholders should intensify efforts outside the classroom, preserving mother tongue and revitalizing endangered languages requires a multifaceted approach that extends well beyond the classroom, which involves fostering a cultural environment where the language is valued and used in daily life, creating intergenerational connections, leveraging technology and documenting linguistic resources.

Where does the gamma go?: Acoustics of the non-labialized voiced velar approximant in Tlingit

The acoustic properties of the voiced velar approximant [ɰ] are poorly characterized, partly from understudy of relevant languages and partly from uncertainty about the sound itself. We investigate this sound in Tlingit, a critically endangered indigenous language of northwestern North America, where [ɰ] contrasts with labialized [w] and palatal [j] in some dialects but not in others where it was lost through sound change (reductive primary split with merge). We use audio recordings of spoken narratives spanning much of the 20th century from speakers with and without [ɰ] to characterize this sound both dialectally and diachronically. We measure formants (f1–f3) to identify place information, amplitude for oral aperture, and harmonic-to-noise ratio for manner. Existing descriptions and phonological patterns predict that [ɰ] is an approximant and not a fricative so we compare against known approximants for differences in turbulence and spectral properties. We also compare against labialized sounds including contrastive [w] for absence of lowered f3 to exclude lip rounding in [ɰ]. We argue that it is the intersection of these acoustic cues that distinguishes [ɰ] from similar sounds, but that these cues are unstable so that dialectal sound change arises from misperception in perturbations of their production.