The eleven chapters of this volume, originally published in 2015 and recently released in paperback for the first time, address the connection between technologies and the documentation, analysis, and revitalisation of endangered languages. In his introduction, Nicholas Ostler emphasises the crucial role that technologies will play in a future where ‘all will speak as they like, and yet the world will understand them’ as part of a process of levelling of the perceived importance of different languages.
The volume emphasises endangered language revitalisation and preservation, covering topics such as the distribution of language materials to speakers through education services and social media (e.g. chapter 8 by Anthony Scott Warren & Geraint Jennings; chapter 9 by Tjeerd de Graaf, Cor van der Meer, & Lysbeth Jongbloed-Faber; and chapter 10 by Cecilia Odé) and keyboard layouts that promote the language's status (chapter 3 by Hugh Paterson III). Chapter 6 by Russell Hugo summarises the fundamental questions for endangered language learning technology projects and offers a centralised system for the archiving and development of materials for indigenous languages in a large region of the US. Such larger projects do not only serve their communities but could also act as blueprints for similar projects as technology spreads to remote and poorly connected areas. In their chapter on rule-based machine translation for Aymara, Matt Coler & Petr Homola show how technologies applied to endangered languages foster the inclusion of speakers and can contribute to wider developments in natural language processing.
The connection between revitalisation and documentation is discussed more specifically in the chapter on American Indian Sign Language by Jeffrey E. Davis. Chapters by Aimée Lahaussois on Tibeto-Burman languages and Sjef Barbiers on European dialects describe the implementation of large infrastructure projects for the study of groups of language variants. Several chapters discuss archiving, most notably the chapter by Bernard Bel & Médéric Gasquet-Cyrus that discusses archive curation in the context of language preservation. Online tools for language data management, processing, and distribution find a special place in the book, which sets the tone for endangered language technology development in the age of cloud-based applications. Most notably, Dorothee Beermann's chapter focuses on TypeCraft—an online tool that is to a degree an alternative to standard tools such as ELAN and FLEx. Coler & Homola identify speech recognition and (semi)automatic corpus annotation tools for language documentation as some of the technological developments we may expect in the near future.
The volume covers a wide range of languages, from well-documented ones that enjoy relatively good institutional and financial support (e.g. Frisian, Jèrriais, and Aymara) to lesser-supported and documented ones like indigenous languages spoken in Nepal, Mexico, and Siberia. The volume's scope is broadened by discussions of dialects as endangered languages (chapter 2 by Sjef Barbiers) and sign languages (chapter 11 by Jeffrey E. Davis), which present specific technological challenges and opportunities.
In an age of language endangerment crisis and rapid technological developments, this volume sets the tone for future discussions on technologies for endangered languages and can serve as a stepping-stone for future research as technology develops and the field of endangered language studies grows.
