Native languages on Facebook

Technology can be deadly. At least for languages. Michael Krauss once described the introduction of television as a kind of "cultural nerve gas" for the effect it had on Alaska Native languages. Without anyone really noticing, television crept in and replaced Native language with English. There have been attempts to harness television and other media for the good of Native language, but usually with limited success. There have even been some notable feature films in Native languages, though usually few and far between. People always gravitate back to watching films and television in English. I wonder if the Internet will be different. Will it serve to destroy Native language, or help Native language to flourish? Back in 2001 a colleague of mine, Laura Buszard-Welcher, wrote an article entitled Can the web help save my language? I think the answer was a resounding "maybe." But the web has matured a lot since then, and there are signs that the Internet really is supporting languages. One of the more encouraging signs is the increasing use of Native language on Facebook.

One of the greatest challenges for the maintenance and revitalization of Alaska Native languages is finding a place where the language can be spoken. English has taken over so many of the domains of language use that it can be hard to make space for Native language. That's why I have been encouraged by efforts such as the increasing use and visibility of Native place names: they give the language a space, if only a symbolic one. Finding space for conversational use of language is more difficult. Some people have made efforts to create language "circles" -- gatherings in which people get together and speak only in the language. Several years ago Kathy Sikorski organized a Gwich'in Circle which met at a local coffee shop. And a group of Tanacross speakers and learners used to meet at MacDonald's to speak Tanacross. It was a great challenge to order a Big Mac in Tanacross! The importance of these circles was that provided a space for Native language use.

I don't see so many language circles any more. They are probably still happening; I'm just out of the loop. But what I do see increasingly now is a kind of virtual language circle: Facebook groups devoted to Native languages. There is a Facebook group for every Alaska Native language. In many cases there is more than one group, and some of them are quite active. Back in October I posted a survey on Facebook to try to get some idea of how people were using Native language on Facebook. A large number of respondents reported that they were posting at least several times per week if not daily.

The most common postings in Facebook Native language groups have to do with how to say something in a language or meanings of words, but there are plenty of other topics being discussed as well, as shown int he following table.

And while few of the posts are entirely in English, nearly 70% of postings have at least some Native language content.

One big advantage of these Facebook groups is that, unlike language circles, they don't require that all the participants be in one place at one time. People can participate regardless of where they are located, and they can check in on the group whenever convenient. This allows asynchronous communication: people can "talk" with each other separated in space and time. This is very different than what we experience in a language classroom, where responses must be given immediately in real time. On Facebook I can take my time to decipher and understand a post. I can take my time to compose and post a reply. Does this make language use on Facebook less real? I don't think that's a fair question. The real point is that Facebook lowers the barrier to language use by providing a safe and welcoming domain.

For most Alaska Native languages we are still a long way from (re-)creating a situation in which Native language exists on par with English in all domains. The best we can hope for is the creation of new domains where Native language can be used. Facebook provides just that domain -- a kind of secondary language community. The language use found among participants in Facebook groups differs greatly from the full fluency imagined in earlier approaches to language revitalization, but it offers a renewed sense of linguistic ownership, as participants actively shape new language varieties. I see this as a promising future for Native American languages.

Of course Facebook is just one of many new digital domains for Native language use. Mobile apps, games, blogs, and websites are also functioning as new language domains. Even digital language archives have important roles to play, though generally in a "read-only" format. I welcome any comments about how these technologies are facilitating new language communities. 

Finally, while the growth of secondary language communities on Facebook and elsewhere on the web is encouraging, I have to admit that there has been relatively little progress in the development of what we might call primary communities. There are plenty of groups devoted to Native language on Facebook, but these are still being accessed through English. Go into the account settings for Facebook and try to change the language setting: you won't find any Native languages in the list. Computer operating systems are slowly beginning to support Native language. The newest version of Mac OS (10.10 Yosemite) offers partial support for Cherokee, Inuktitut, Hawaiian, Greenlandic, and Lakota. Microsoft Windows offered its first support for Native American languages with the Cherokee language pack for Windows 8, introduced in 2012. No Alaskan languages as of yet. So the digital future of Alaska Native languages remains an open question. That leaves me wondering, Can I save my language without the web? But I'll leave that thought for another post.