Designing Mobile Applications for Endangered Languages

Abstract

Speakers of the world’s endangered languages are rapidly gaining access to broadband internet on mobile devices. Meanwhile, social mobile technologies continue to transform the way people work together. I believe that conditions are ripe for the development of a new generation of software for endangered languages. This software will enable new ways for linguists to collaborate with speakers in ancestral homelands and worldwide diasporas to produce high-quality large-scale documentation. This chapter sets out a conceptual framework and describes some concrete steps for designing mobile applications for endangered languages, recognizing the special challenges they present, such as reliance on oral materials, lack of established orthography, and lower digital literacy.