Shuhang Li
“Where in the world do you learn Chinese in Cantonese?” The Secretary for Education of Hong Kong, China said that if we learn Chinese in Cantonese in the long run, we need to study whether we will lose the advantage of Hong Kong. The language learning application Duolingo offers courses in Navajo and Hawaiian, but in fact, the number of people who speak these two languages may not reach 30000, which is less advantageous.
Myra Awodey, the chief community expert of Duolingo, admitted that the company had predicted that this was not a profitable project, but she said: “This is just something we feel we must do.” This cheap learning platform has more than 33040 users, and all of them attend free courses. It is hoped that its unique position in the language learning community “can not only protect the endangered language but also make the language spread.” Awodey means that although Duolingo usually offers widely used language courses, it has also received requests for minority language courses. Duolingo’s website shows that more than 20000 users are interested in learning Hawaiian.
The Kingdom of Hawaii was overthrown in 1893, and the use of the Hawaiian language for teaching and learning was banned in 1896. The number of Hawaiian language users declined sharply. Hawaiian was not recognized as the official language of Hawaii until the Constitution of Hawaii was amended in 1978. In the 1980s, the state’s education department established the Hawaiian Research Program and the Hawaiian Language Experience Program. The University of Hawaii also opened related degrees, reopened schools that teach Hawaiian, and established a non-profit organization ‘AhaP ū Nana Leo to revive and spread the language. However, according to a state report in 2020, Hawaiian is still the fifth largest language in the local area except for English, and only 18610 people can speak Hawaiian. The content of the Duolingo Hawaiian language course is developed with the help of Kamehameha Schools, a Hawaiian school network dedicated to developing the Hawaiian alpine ethnic education system.
K, Vice President of Community Engagement Resources, Kamehameha Schools āʻ Eo Duarte said: “The foundation of our ancestors’ adoption of new printing technology in the 19th century ʻō lelo Hawai ʻ I Bring it into this platform, so that traditional skills, literature, and history can be inherited. ” Ekela Kaniaupio Crozier, a member of the development team of the course, has 40 years of Hawaiian language teaching experience. She said: “People always think local people will like and support Hawaiian. The reality is that prejudice still exists, and people still think that learning Hawaiian is a waste of time today.” She added: “Just like using English in Hawaii, we also hope to see the Hawaiian language widely used. Indeed, it is the official language of the state and should have equal status.” Kaniaupio Crozier specifically mentioned that the primary target of the course is Hawaiian aborigines. She thinks it is particularly important for local people to learn their language first: “This is mainly to help us learn our language first, let it return to the owner (Hawaiian)’s heart, and share it.”
The situation of language disappearance and culture disappearance is more serious. It is estimated that 1500 people are transferred to the area in San Juan County, Utah to learn Navajo in an old way. Clayton Long, an educator in Duolingo, spent his childhood in the Navajo culture of the mountain people in the southwest of the United States, hoping that Navajo can be passed on and that hundreds of thousands of young people can get in touch with it through game oriented applications, He said: “We are at a critical moment. If we do not attract any children who want to learn or should learn, we will lose a lot… When you lose a language, you will lose a culture.”
Duolingo has been used to save a language facing extinction. In 2014, Duolingo included Irish Gaelic in the platform for the first time. When the Irish language course was launched in 2014, it was estimated that only 100000 people were parents’ language users. Today, 4 million people have used the application to learn this language. This feat won the public thanks of the Irish President in 2016. If this effort continues, the revival of Navajo and Hawaiian languages is promising.
Questions:
1. What do you think of the way to publicize the vanishing indigenous languages? What are the advantages and disadvantages? (feel free to share your opinions)
2. How to arouse people’s awareness of the protection of indigenous languages of ethnic minorities? You can choose one from school, family, society, and other aspects to talk about (if you want to say more, that would be great!)
References:
Galla, C. K. (2018). Digital realities of indigenous language revitalization: a look at Hawaiian language technology in the modern world. Language and Literacy, 20(3), 100–120. https://doi.org/10.20360/langandlit29412
Josep, C. (2015). Language revitalization from the ground up promoting Yucatec maya on facebook. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 36(3), 284–296. https://doi.org/10.1080/01434632.2014.921184
