Episode 154

If Language is On Fire, Who Puts it Out? (with Alexa Little from 7000 Languages 👩🏼‍🚒)

00:00:00
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01:04:30

September 30th, 2019

1 hr 4 mins 30 secs

Your Host
Special Guest

About this Episode

In this episode, I bring you a touching interview with Alexa Little, a computational linguist who runs a non-profit building language apps for languages that REALLY need them.

Endangered Language Revival with Alexa Little from 7000 Languages

One common question about endangered languages is what that definition actually means. Here is how Alexa put it:

An endangered language is a language that is no longer being transmitted from older generations to younger generations. An indigenous language is a language that is spoken or belongs to an indigenous people.

In this interview, you'll hear about

  • how Alexa went from wanting to be an archaeologist to becoming a full-time language activist
  • what the organisation 7000 Languages is all about and how they help communities build language learning apps
  • how schools and school policies in Hawaii affected the survival of the island's own language
  • what you as an 'outsider' can do for language preservation without stepping on the toes of the people who know best
  • where you an find the apps that 7000 Languages creates and use them for free!

Plus a really good definition of the language vs dialect hot potato. 🥔

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