WIKIS AWAKEN LOCAL LANGUAGES

Posted by AsiaViews | Apr 2, 2018 | 0 |

Once scoffing at Wikipedia, academics are slowly entertaining the idea that crowd-sourced knowledge might be a useful starting point for serious research as Wikipedia and other crowd-source platforms have “metamorphosed from gangly cultural interloper(s) into the de facto reference work of first resort.”

Recent work by the Spatial History Project at Stanford University suggests that in some cases, crowd source platforms might even be better than academic studies in their ability to “ask questions that would be difficult or impossible to do in more traditional modes of inquiry.”

An innovative collaboration of linguists and community leaders in Bali, Indonesia is taking a step further by seeing if crowd-source platforms can influence social behavior in addition to developing viable resources. The group, known as BASAbali, is developing a Balinese wiki that is part dictionary, part encyclopedia, and part platform for Balinese-related materials that do not yet have a digital home. The wiki uses the strength of the Internet – which has the power to help and hinder the world’s 7000 local languages – to engage the public in valuing and using Balinese alongside of Indonesian, English, Chinese and other international languages.

Linguist David Crystal suggests that languages can thrive if: 1) the people who speak the language want to save it – which means that the language has to be cool enough for young people to want to speak it, 2) there is “sympathy from on high” meaning that there is national if not international policies and resources support the use of the language and 3) there is the expertise to teach, write, and publish in the local language.

BASAbali’s Balinese cultural wiki tries to engage the public in making sure that these three elements are present and strong enough to sustain the Balinese language against the pressure and allure to just use national and international languages in an increasingly digital and globalized world.

This collaboration, which just a few months ago was internationally recognized for its innovative work, doesn’t measure success in terms of publications, documents archived or words entered in the wiki, although at 11,000 they have a pretty good start. The collaboration keeps track of wiki users but they are more concerned about how the wiki can increase the number of Balinese language websites, crossword puzzles, cartoons, social media postings, newspaper articles, and modern literature.

The impact of these spillover effects is difficult to measure, but if the BASAbali wiki can have an even tangential impact in how people are thinking about and using Balinese, it may be that we should be focusing on using crowdsourcing platforms as a powerful way to sustain and strengthen local languages.***

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EXTRICATING NDONESIAN CHILDREN FROM ISIS INFLUENCE ABROAD

Indonesia urgently needs to revisit the possibility of repatriating the neediest of its young citizens stranded abroad, whose families had earlier joined ISIS. Most of these children are in camps in northern Syria but there are also small numbers in the Philippines, Afghanistan and Iraq. “Extricating Indonesian Children from ISIS Influence Abroad”, the latest report from the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC) argues that the government could begin by bringing back small groups of unaccompanied children under ten years of age, who pose minimal security risk and are most vulnerable to deteriorating conditions in the camps.“The problem is that health and security conditions are worsening by the day in the Syrian camps, and the children are growing older,” says Dyah Kartika, IPAC analyst. “They need access to schools, a nurturing environment, and medical attention. If the government waits too long, the children will be further exposed to ISIS ideology.” The new report examines a 2019 list of Indonesians in camps and prisons run by the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The Indonesian government has been trying to verify their citizenship, but with pseudonyms, misspellings and bad transliterations, it is a daunting task. At the time the data was collected, between March and June 2019, there were 555 Indonesians in SDF camps and prisons, including 367 children. Among the children, approximately 277 were under the age of ten and 34 were unaccompanied. In June 2021, there are fewer than ten children who are both unaccompanied and under the age of ten that could be prioritized for return. Bringing back children of ISIS families is no easy task. The report analyses the main challenges faced by the Indonesian government. These include definitional issues, bureaucratic competition, the difficulty of verifying nationality, evaluating the toll of exposure to conflict, assessing security risk, and finding relatives or others willing to provide care once the children are returned. In addition, COVID has meant stringent restrictions on travel, placing further obstacles in the way of repatriation. There are several models for rehabilitation of children exposed to violent extremism in Indonesia that could be modified to accommodate the needs of children repatriated from abroad. The report examines these models and argues that the government does not need to have every detail of rehabilitation programs in place before it starts extricating children from ISIS influence. It can start by bringing back the most vulnerable children and then modify programs as needed.

“It’s important that the government see these children as victims” says Dyah. “They deserve a chance to be children again.”

WIKIS AWAKEN LOCAL LANGUAGES