Mastodawn

What happens when we lose a language?

"In Canada, research showed that among groups where more than half could maintain a conversation in their native language, youth suicide rates were low to absent, whereas they were six times higher in groups where that wasn’t the case. A language alone does not save a community from poor mental health, of course, but it may be an indicator of the cultural resilience that does."

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/may/10/what-happens-when-we-lose-a-language

#endangeredlanguages

What happens when we lose a language?

A staggering 44% of human languages are endangered – with culture, tradition and whole ways of understanding the world at stake

The Guardian

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multilingualfutures May 8

And while this is genuinely humbling, rest assured that it will only make me more annoying. Your students can be fluent in a year. No more excuses!!
#language #education #languagerevitalization #endangeredlanguages #Indigenouslanguages #actfl https://social.vivaldi.net/@multilingualfutures/116540116886203630

multilingualfutures (@[email protected])

Attached: 2 images The year of the wood snake handed my a** to me in a very unexpected way. I spend all my time telling language educators that their expectations are too low, that their students can become fluent much faster than they think! But then... I said something was impossible...which we then immediately achieved...and I can't frickin believe it.

Vivaldi Social

ResearchBuzz: Firehose May 5

Sahan Journal: ‘Language carries many things’: How Minnesotans are preserving six rare languages . “Every four years, the U.S. Census Bureau releases state-specific language data, which highlights languages spoken at home. Last year, Sahan Journal reported on how this linguistic diversity reflects a changing state. But beyond numbers, the data also reflect Minnesotans’ efforts to preserve […]

https://rbfirehose.com/2026/05/05/language-carries-many-things-how-minnesotans-are-preserving-six-rare-languages-sahan-journal/

‘Language carries many things’: How Minnesotans are preserving six rare languages (Sahan Journal)

ResearchBuzz: Firehose

multilingualfutures May 4

𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗶𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲'𝘀 𝗻𝗼 𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝘄𝗮𝘆 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗮𝗸 𝗮 𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗴𝘂𝗮𝗴𝗲?
A ✨thing I did✨in the year of the wood snake was to write a chapter in a forthcoming book called Lesser-Taught Languages In Multilingual Contexts about how we teach #endangeredlanguages without prescribing a right way to speak them (aka without standardization). This is one of those ways to decolonize that is oddly simple, with big impacts.

multilingualfutures Apr 20

I know they put your thesis online and I am a big advocate for making research publicly available, but it's still shocking and blush-inducing every time that someone reads or cites your weird little passion manifesto from a former lifetime. 🥰 #education #research #endangeredlanguages #languagerevitalization #highered

Weltschmerz à Gogo Apr 9

An interesting, relatively short discussion about using AI chatbots as tools for revitalizing endangered languages. The upshot is that, if it's going to be done at all, it needs to be done very, very carefully and only by or in close collaboration with the community that actually uses a given language. But there are an awful lot of details to work through, and this discussion is really tip-of-the-iceberg level. (Personally, I'm deeply skeptical of the value of "AI" tools for projects like these, and I'm not really convinced that the payoff is likely to be worth the effort. That's without even mentioning the ecological cost of "AI". Still, the discussion is interesting even if just in terms of the ethics involved and the particular complications of working with endangered languages.)

https://endangeredlanguages.com/story/ask-elp-ethical-ai

#EndangeredLanguages #AI #IndigenousLanguage

Ask ELP: Ethical AI | Endangered Languages Project

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multilingualfutures Apr 6

I actually don't think we need help learning to love, to be loving. I think we need permission from others to divest from fear. And being surrounded by people who have come to refuse fear is incredibly freeing. I want for all of us to release superficiality and material obsessions at a much younger age, so that we can be in our worth and our power, and invest in the world the elders know we need to build.
#education #linguistics #endangeredlanguages #spirituality #languagerevitalization https://social.vivaldi.net/@multilingualfutures/116358615539201259

multilingualfutures (@[email protected])

Not to brag💅, but I spend almost all of my time with folks in their 60s, 70s, and 80s, and it's f'n metal🤘. 13/10 would recommend. I often say that my most meaningful learning started after I got my PhD, when I was so craving the chance to learn about life, existence, and broader ways of knowing. I intentionally learned from spiritual teachers, but less intentionally began doing fieldwork with elders of several nations.

Vivaldi Social

ResearchBuzz: Firehose Apr 4

University of Alberta: U of A linguist collaborates with community to preserve endangered language. “The structure of Sáliba, an Indigenous language spoken in Colombia, is still not well understood. But a number of audio recordings that include narratives, songs and procedural texts — along with handwritten annotations — made by Colombian linguist Jon Landaburu in the late 1960s could help […]

https://rbfirehose.com/2026/04/04/university-of-alberta-u-of-a-linguist-collaborates-with-community-to-preserve-endangered-language/

University of Alberta: U of A linguist collaborates with community to preserve endangered language

University of Alberta: U of A linguist collaborates with community to preserve endangered language. “The structure of Sáliba, an Indigenous language spoken in Colombia, is still not well unde…

ResearchBuzz: Firehose

Siefollah Aslani – QashqAI Voi Mar 11

🌐 QashqAI Voice is live.
Preserving the Qashqai language through ethical AI — digitally, sustainably, and with dignity.
صدای قشقایی زنده است. 🏕️
👉 www.qashqaivoice.com
#QashqaiVoice #EndangeredLanguages #EthicalAI

LACITO Mar 2

#Sondage / #Survey
Set up by colleagues in the USA gathering information on viability/endangerment of... not languages, but ***minority-language documentation & language work***. Recent events of withdrawal of government support serve as an opportunity to think more broadly about long-term resilience.

It comes in 2 versions:
* The short version: https://cryptpad.fr/form/#/2/form/view/bXfPtM2-9XI9wwi3ZuYd8tOrAmPa9GKKclMfLiZKiJk/

* The longer version: https://cryptpad.fr/form/#/2/form/view/7IpVLIHucfDK1d2yo84cL29mx09o85ICq9IpZFzZ4fc/

Please answer & help circulate
#EndangeredLanguages #EndangeredArchives