e-l-p.bsky.social
Sharing knowledge and building international networks to support language revitalization and documentation.
https://endangeredlanguages.com
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#languagelodge is co-organized by ELP, @risingvoices.bsky.social, and the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. This year, it’s hosted by Quechua language activist Emma Vadillo Quesada, co-founder of Watuchi Siminchik Wasi. Read more:
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You can find all the stories, and introductions from the storytellers, on our YouTube channel:
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This story was created during the 2024 "We Are Our Languages" digital storytelling workshop, organized by the Endangered Languages Project and facilitated by StoryCenter (@storycenter.org)
This is the fifth of the stories we have shared - more will be coming in the following months.
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You can view all the stories, and introductions from the storytellers, on our YouTube channel:
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This story was created during the 2024 "We Are Our Languages" digital storytelling workshop, organized by the Endangered Languages Project and facilitated by StoryCenter (@storycenter.org)
This is the fourth of the stories we have shared - more will be coming in the following months.
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What is ELP’s stance when it comes to AI tools? “We are very strong[ly] against extractive types of AI production…replicating systems of colonial harm. It’s about the people. And that’s why we do it. We only use technology to support that human connection element.”
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4) The wrong tool for the job: “Language endangerment is really a socio-political problem, and AI has never to my knowledge fixed any of those. It actually exacerbates them in many ways… There is a danger that instead of solving these problems it will actually perpetuate them.”
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3) Errors about languages and their structures, if not trained well, pointed out by Anna Luisa Daigneault from Living Tongues: “If you take an AI model that has been trained on English or another dominant language, it really won’t work when you apply it to a language that hasn’t been studied well.”
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2) Perpetuating harmful narratives: “terminology such as ‘dying’, ‘extinct’, or ‘saving’… can harm the well-being, rights, and aspirations of Indigenous and minoritized people. Unfortunately, these words and phrases are fed into AI large language models (LLMs), which in turn perpetuate their use.”
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What are some of the potential harms?
1) Protocol: “AI is unable to discern between language that should not be shared publicly or that should be treated in a certain way; it simply ingests all of it and spits it back out without knowing these protocols or respecting community preferences.”
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We can talk with you in 11 languages, and there’s no limit on how many online appointments you can make.
We invite you to talk with us, share your experiences and challenges, and build connections with other language champions around the world!
endangeredlanguages.com/mentors
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The five ELP Language Revitalization Mentors all have deep experience revitalizing their own languages. 🌱
They bring knowledge of language work in their home communities in Cameroon, Mexico, Canada, Ireland, and the Tibetan Plateau, as well as academic training in this work.
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This workshop brought together language champions from Indigenous and minoritized communities around the world, to build skills in digital storytelling and form networks of support.
We can't continue this work without our allies - please consider supporting language revitalization worldwide:
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You can view all the stories, and introductions from the storytellers, on our YouTube channel:
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This story was created during the 2024 "We Are Our Languages" digital storytelling workshop, organized by the Endangered Languages Project and facilitated by StoryCenter (@storycenter.org)
This is the third of the stories we have shared - more will be coming in the following months.
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If you or someone you know is a #journalist, #reporter, #editor or #writer who may engage with topics of Indigenous and minoritized languages, #language endangerment, or language revitalization, please use and share this! We hope it can help folks to tell these stories and "say it with respect"! 🗞️
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We thank all of the people that contributed to this guide. We also thank Lydia Prince (Dakelh/Cree) for her beautiful work on the document’s design and layout, and Nicaela León @phuyu.bsky.social (Quechua) for her fantastic work on finalizing the guide & designing the stunning cover page. 🗞️ ⅚
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This guide has 3 sections centered around using respectful language when telling stories about language-related topics: 🚩 red flags (disrespectful, avoid), ⚠️ yellow flags (use with caution) and ✅ green flags (respectful). Each flag has an explanation and a suggested alternative. 🗞️ ⁴⁄₆
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Reporting on these topics often falls into deficit narratives like:
“This ancient, dying language with only 5 speakers needs saving.”
This kind of framing spreads false assumptions while obscuring the roots of the problem. How does this guide help? 🗞️ ³⁄₆
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This guide is a resource for #journalists, written from the point of view of Indigenous Peoples and allies.
We appreciate the growing attention that the media is giving to #language endangerment and revitalization, but we have seen issues covered in ways that unintentionally cause harm. How? 🗞️ ²⁄₆
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This workshop brought together language champions from Indigenous and minoritized communities around the world, to build skills in digital storytelling and form networks of support.
We can't continue this work without our allies - please consider supporting language revitalization worldwide:
comment in response to
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This story was created during the 2024 "We Are Our Languages" digital storytelling workshop, organized by the Endangered Languages Project and facilitated by StoryCenter (@storycenter.org )
This is the second of the stories we have shared - more will be coming in the following months.