When Words Disappear: How Technology Can Help Save Dying Languages
Every two weeks, the world loses a language. That means a community somewhere says its final prayer or forgets how to name the stars in its own tongue. According to UNESCO , more than 3,000 of the 7,000+ spoken languages today are endangered. And when a language dies, so does the culture, memory, and wisdom it carries.
But what if technology, often seen as a cause of erasure, becomes the solution?
In this digital age, tools like artificial intelligence, mobile apps, and open-source keyboards are now being used to revive, protect, and teach endangered languages around the world. This post explores the problem, why it matters, and how technology can help rewrite the story.
Languages are vanishing at an alarming rate due to:
- Urbanization and migration
- Colonial histories and enforced education in dominant languages
- Media dominance of English, Arabic, French, and Mandarin
- Lack of tech tools—many languages lack digital support like keyboards, dictionaries, or translation services
According to the UNESCO Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger , these losses are not just linguistic, they’re deeply cultural. A language carries community values, ecological knowledge, history, and a worldview.
Why This Matters?
1. Language = Identity
The ability to speak your ancestral language connects you to your roots, your name, your people. Its loss can bring shame, loss of self-esteem, or disconnect in diaspora communities.
When a language dies, a way of seeing the world dies with it.
2. If a Language Isn’t Online, It’s Invisible
In today’s world, if your language isn’t on Google, YouTube, or Duolingo, it’s effectively excluded. It won’t appear in search results. It won’t be used in AI models. And the next generation might grow up thinking it doesn’t matter.
Here’s how technology can help:
Digital Dictionaries & Archives
Many communities are now creating online resources to document their vocabularies, idioms, and folktales.
- Living Dictionaries by The Language Conservancy helps communities build audio-text dictionaries.
- Wikitongues records and archives spoken languages around the world, often by native speakers.
Language Learning Apps
Apps help younger generations re-learn what was lost.
- Duolingo teaches endangered languages like Hawaiian and Navajo.
- Ute Language App teaches the Ute Mountain Ute language.
- Masakhane builds machine translation tools for African languages with local data.
3. Voice Technology in Local Tongues
Voice recognition tools are notoriously biased toward English. But some projects are shifting that:
- Mozilla’s Common Voice collects voice data in over 100 languages, including Yorùbá, Twi, Kinyarwanda, and Luganda.
- The Igbo API Project enables developers to integrate the Igbo language into applications.
4. Social Media & Storytelling
Almost everyone is using Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube to create content through memes, music, and comedy. Digital storytelling is now a tool for preservation.
Here’s how governments, technology creators, and communities can step in
1. Build Keyboards for Every Language
Projects like Keyman and SIL Cameroon Keyboard support unique characters and diacritics missing from QWERTY.
2. Integrate Native Language Tools in Schools
Children should learn to type, read, and write in their mother tongue digitally using tools like Google Gboard .
3. Fund Indigenous Tech Startups
Many language-tech innovations are underfunded. NGOs, governments, and private sector players need to invest in local builders creating applications and platforms in native languages.
Saving languages is about saving people. And people today live online. If a language is searchable, speakable by AI, and visible in media, it thrives. We can build platforms, teach and create content in our languages to keep them alive and heard."
It’s time we rethink tech with linguistic justice in mind. When we save a language, we don’t just preserve grammar, we preserve belonging.
The Inclusive Naming Initiative is always looking for advocates, learn moore here .