NYT-1201: STATE OF THE ART A Thermostat That's Clever, Not ...
NYT-1201: STATE OF THE ART A Thermostat That's Clever, Not ...
NYT-1201: STATE OF THE ART A Thermostat That's Clever, Not ...
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nguage is driven from the ground up,” says Don Tho<br />
rnton, a software developer in Las Vegas who speci<br />
alizes in making video games and mobile apps in Na<br />
tive American languages. “It doesn’t matter if you<br />
have a million speakers — if your kids aren’t lea<br />
rning, you’re in big trouble.”<br />
Of 6,909 catalogued languages, hundreds are unlike<br />
ly to be passed on to the next generation. Thornto<br />
n, who has worked with more than 100 Native Americ<br />
an tribes, says that some are already using sophis<br />
ticated programs to preserve their languages. “Oth<br />
er groups,” he says, “we ask about their language<br />
program, and they say, ‘You’re it.’ We look at it<br />
from their standpoint — what are the coolest techn<br />
ologies out there? We start programming for that.”<br />
For the vast majority of the world, the cellphone,<br />
not the Internet, is the coolest available techno<br />
logy. And they are using those phones to text rath<br />
er than to talk. Though most of the world’s langua<br />
ges have no written form, people are beginning to<br />
transliterate their mother tongues into the alphab<br />
et of a national language. Now they can text in th<br />
e language they grew up speaking. Harrison tells o<br />
f traveling in Siberia, where he met a truck drive<br />
r who devised his own system for writing the endan<br />
gered Chulym language, using the Cyrillic alphabet<br />
. “You find people like him everywhere,” Harrison<br />
said. “We are getting languages where the first wr<br />
iting is not the translation of the Bible — as it<br />
has often happened — but text messages.”<br />
Traore, who left Guinea for New York in November 1<br />
988, did not discover N’Ko until a 2007 trip to vi<br />
sit his parents in his native village. When his wi<br />
fe, Greta, a software developer, went into his bro<br />
ther’s room, she noticed books in N’Ko on his shel<br />
ves. Puzzled, she called her husband in. “You said<br />
your language was not written. So what are these<br />
books?” Traore was shocked. (He and Traore did not<br />
grow up together.) When he came back to New York,