The fragility of minority languages is becoming increasingly apparent in a globalizing world. Linguists, civil society organizations, local communities, governments, and supranational organizations are advocating for maintaining and even reviving endangered languages as a prerequisite for the preservation of the world’s cultural heritage and of indigenous peoples’ cultures and identities.
The papers included in this collection were originally presented during Trace Foundation’s Minority Languages in Today’s Global Society lecture series 2008-2010. The series brought together a diverse group of experts, scholars, and linguists from three continents, including a number of important Tibetan specialists, to present an overview of the challenges being faced by indigenous peoples’ languages in the modern world.
This book is the second of a two-volume set entitled Minority Language in Today’s Global Society. Like the first volume, this publication is intended as a small contribution to this overall effort but is more focused on the role technologies have played in the preservation, enhancement, and sustainability of minority languages in general and digitalization of Tibetan language in particular. The papers also explore both the pros and cons of language standardization within minority communities and the relationship between linguistic, cultural, and biological diversity from the perspectives of traditional land use, livelihoods,and indigenous knowledge.
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