Google project highlights Aussie languages

18 Jul 2012, 5:54 pm   -   Source: AFP
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(AAP)

(AAP)

Google has unveiled an online project to save more than 3,000 endangered languages, including hundreds in Australia.

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Google has unveiled an online project to save more than 3,000 endangered languages, including hundreds in Australia.

Called endangeredlanguages.com, it is out to help improve the exchange of digital source materials in languages spoken by small numbers of people.

A map on the project's website highlights thousands of languages, including Nauete in East Timor, Aragonese in Spain, Maori in New Zealand and more than 200 in Australia..

"It is an open, on-line platform where anybody can get on and start sharing materials in those languages which are in danger of being lost," said Miguel Alba, Google's Mexico marketing chief.

He said half of the 7000 languages spoken today were not expected to survive.

"Generally languages that are threatened are being abandoned ... speakers instead opt for another language seen as more economically or socially advantageous, said anthropologist Francisco Barriga.

But if users see their languages reflected positively in world media they may start taking stock of all that can be lost, Barriga said.

Google , Languages

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