Design and Implementation of Socially Driven Knowledge Management Systems for Revitalizing Endangered Languages

One language and its culture die every 2 weeks. If nothing is done, half of the over 7,000 languages spoken today could disappear by the end of this century. Only 600 or so languages with large numbers of speakers (more than 100,000) may survive. The current state of language endangerment highlights the need for revitalizing endangered languages for the survival of culture, diversity, and knowledge. Current language revitalization efforts, approaches and systems have been fragmented and predominantly focused on language learning. An integrated and holistic approach needs to be adopted for the preservation, curation, transmission and usage of endangered languages and the culture embedded therein. The strengths of social media and the functionality of knowledge management systems have the potential to revitalize endangered languages. In this chapter we first introduce language revitalization, social media, and knowledge management systems. This is followed by a discussion on how social media driven knowledge management systems can be leveraged to preserve, curate, transmit, discover and ultimately revitalize endangered languages. Secondly we compare and synthesize literature on existing language preservation and knowledge management systems with a particular focus on their support for societal collaboration. Finally, this chapter proposes the design and implementation of “Save Lingo”, a holistic socially driven knowledge management system for preserving and revitalizing endangered languages. We instantiate and validate the system in the context of Te Reo Māori, which is spoken by the indigenous population of New Zealand.