Abstract:

​​Language is a key part of every culture, and many languages are dying at an increasingly alarming rate. One possible combatant, however, is technology, that could be used to recover, preserve, and teach extinct or disappearing languages. Focusing on European languages, this paper explores which languages could potentially be preserved and taught utilizing technology, and how groups of people and nations could benefit from such endeavors. It analyzes different regions, their languages, their economic and technological climates, and how technology has been used in the past to accomplish similar projects. We will give examples of multiple languages, as just narrowing it down to one is difficult and may not provide an accurate depiction of a singular region’s many cultural aspects. Technology has played an important role in education in recent years and through approaches like Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, dictionaries and translation services have been able to greatly assist researchers in their quests to preserve languages. Approaches like Google Translate, for example, have been employed in widely spoken languages such as English, Chinese, Spanish, and French. The question to ask now is if similar approaches would be successful when applied to extinct or dying languages.  Languages are more than passing down recipes and translating cultural significance in an ever-growing global world. Language is the key to unearthing the knowledge passed down from generation to generation. It is the vitality of this knowledge that holds the collective wisdom of culture to preserve our future for sustainable growth and preservation of cultural heritage. Languages are dying at an alarming rate in a post-colonized world in order to adapt to neoliberal capitalism and globalization. In this neocolonial age, we experience cultural assimilation and genocidal technologies replacing language with icons diluting the semantics of communication. To illustrate the importance of language preservation and how we can revitalize the knowledge embedded within, we will focus on one European language, the Romagnolo language of Emilia-Romagna, Italy. The combination of technology, education, and heritage can help protect that particular culture and stimulate other and broader innovative solutions for the future.

Keywords:

Linguistics, technology, European languages, regional dialects, cultural revitalization, culture, education, endangered languages, globalization.