iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Endangered Languages Project @e-l-p.bsky.social · 23h

"It's Not OK to Let a Language Die" is now available in Spanish, Urdu, Portuguese, Korean, and Italian. We offer our heartfelt thanks to the volunteer translators who shared their knowledge and work:⁠

endangeredlanguages.com

It’s Not O.K. to Let a Language Die: A Response to The New Yorker | Endangered Languages Project

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Endangered Languages Project @e-l-p.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

Coming up in 2.5 hours: how can language revitalization continue when folks are away from their traditional territories? Come hear from Tamara Aisake about Rotuman language circles from the diaspora! Today, October 13, 10am Pacific - free and online: bit.ly/stories-from...

Title “Stories from the Heart: Community Language Projects from Ready to Revitalize”

Below is a photo of Tamara Aisake in red regalia holding a feather fan. Text to the right reads: “Tamara Aisake & Club Hugag'esea
Faeag Rotuam Ta (Rotuma, Fuji)
"Rotuman Language
Circles from the Diaspora"

Hugag'esea creates mentorships with elders and learners to create cultural workshop/projects with Fäeag Rotuam Ta. Groups then facilitate and share their gifts of knowledge with our diaspora community. Although our language is from Rotuma, Fiji, this project encourages language stewardship wherever in the world we are.”

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Something is Being Born @nabelew.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

3) "the [DoD] does not offer domestic indigenous dialects such as Lakota, Cherokee, or Ojibwe, despite their regional uniqueness to the United States." if you can't even afford languages the status of "language", what makes you qualified to make intelligence recommendations on how to exploit them

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Something is Being Born @nabelew.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

2) hey intel community, you may wanna tell your buddies the tech corpos that you're banking on these being unbreakable codes that "lack commercial institutional training frameworks," cause they're busy trying to ingest as many Indigenous languages as possible into commercial LLMs

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Something is Being Born @nabelew.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

"Native American language isolates are sovereign linguistic assets bound entirely to domestic indigenous populations and therefore lack commercial institutional training frameworks" 1) "sovereign assets" bound to SOVEREIGN NATIONS, if they must be considered bound to any legal entity, not to the US

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Something is Being Born @nabelew.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Ah, we're back to "the U.S. linguistic security apparatus must revitalize endangered regional language isolates as a layered security measure" well boys let's revitalize all the languages we tried to eradicate so that they can advance our efforts to eradicate OTHER people

smallwarsjournal.com

Centauri, High Valyrian, and Klingon: Why Advanced Encryption Standards Cannot Replace Low-Density Human Dialects

The U.S. linguistic security apparatus must revitalize endangered regional language isolates as a layered security measure.

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Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

What a thrill to get to interview Keoni Mahelona of Te Hiku Media for Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000! www.buzzsprout.com/2126417/epis... Keoni, @alexhanna.bsky.social and I had a wonderful conversation about technosolutionism and colonialism in language technology.

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Something is Being Born @nabelew.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

FYI for anyone who ever crosses the US border: CBP can now open your phone to look for nudes just cause they’re bored

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Something is Being Born @nabelew.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

this shit is just pathetic please, summarize this for me

a single message that says “okay awesome!” with Meta AI offering to “✨summarize 1 unread”

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Starfire’s Deranged Neocon Foreign Policy Podcast @irhottakes.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Thinking of sci-fi niches for the human race that aren't "adaptable," which is the coward's choice. I feel like we'd be famous for being good physicists. Splitting the atom before sending a human into space feels like it would be a rare sequence of events.

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Endangered Languages Project @e-l-p.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Registration for the 2026 Language Documentation Learning Series is now open! This free, online 9-week course will cover the basics of language documentation: how to make good records of your language. No prior experience needed - we’ll start from the beginning! bit.ly/2026langdoc

Flyer with background photo of snowy mountains and text: Language
Documentation Learning Series
WEEK 1:
Language Endangerment and Documentation
Anna Belew
Endangered Languages
Project /University of Hawaii at Manoa
Friday, October 9, 2026 2:00 pm Hawaii (UTC-10)
https://bit.ly/2026langdoc

On the right is a photo of Anna Belew, at the bottom are logos of the Endangered Languages Project and Language Documentation Training Center

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Something is Being Born @nabelew.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

some unintentionally funny wild-eyed conspiratorial posting in the subject line “language revitalization advocates needing endangered languages” though “Big Language Revitalization needs to CREATE endangered languages to KEEP the REVITALIZATION-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX profitable Follow the MONEY!!!”

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Something is Being Born @nabelew.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

oh thank GOD i can be connected to “qualified conversations” about language revitalization! i have no clue what i would have done if this shitty AI prompt, and the hundreds of others clogging up my inbox, hadn’t sent me this very insightful offer that totally makes sense

email screenshot from “Marissa Whitfield” with subject line “language revitalization advocates needing Endangered Languages”

body text is “Anna,
If I could connect you with 10-12 qualified conversations among language revitalization advocates every month, would that be useful?
Regards, Marissa”

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Global Voices @globalvoices.org · 13/09/2026

The Ryūkyūan People's quest for self-determination and Indigenous status has been thwarted by over 100 years of harsh assimilation policies and a heavy U.S military presence since WWII.

globalvoices.org

In Japan, Ryūkyūan Indigenous claim hindered by U.S. military bases in Okinawa

The Ryūkyūan People's quest for self-determination and Indigenous status has been thwarted by over 100 years of harsh assimilation policies and a heavy U.S military presence since WWII.

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Friendly Neighborhood Mouse @missmouse.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

Friday morning, I was gardening when I checked my phone. A request had gone out for help. For 25+ hours, ICE had been laying siege to a quiet neighborhood in Frederick, MD. Community members were afraid, some didn’t want to leave their homes. ICE vehicles seemed to be lurking on every corner.

ICE vehicle - black Nissan Maxima with plate cover - posted up in a spot that also serves as an elementary school bus stop.

Another ICE vehicle, black Dodge Durango, lurking around the community.

Two more ICE vehicles - black Dodge Durango and a white SUV, unclear on make, model - on a quiet residential street, being quietly creepy. Note that the white SUV has its plate covered.

Yet another ICE vehicle. Black Nissan Pathfinder. They were all over the neighborhood.

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Something is Being Born @nabelew.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

i miss the days of the guy who would email linguist list two or three times a year politely asking for a xenolinguist to decipher the alien calligraphy he was an astral conduit for he always attached long videos of him just quietly doing his alien calligraphy it was very peaceful

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Something is Being Born @nabelew.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

my favorite one this year was the guy who sent a several hundred page document on how Sanskrit contains all divine mathematics dating back to the birth of the universe, and attached were two reviewer blurbs about how brilliant and paradigm-changing it was …the reviewers were Grok and Meta AI

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Something is Being Born @nabelew.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

normal person: Who the fuck would— “Polyakov, who turns 26 this year and studied finance,” “from Scottsdale” “goes by @Neo-Orientalist – ‘because I’m bringing it back’” oh. right

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Something is Being Born @nabelew.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

‘Polyakov cut the engine and set his GoPro to record. “So, the goal,” he said, “Introduce this Palaeolithic tribe to modernity… Let’s land on this bitch.”’ ‘[Protections are an] agenda “to keep certain groups stuck in the past”’. The footsoldiers of empire never refresh their narratives do they

theguardian.com

‘This is colonialism for clicks’: the influencers attempting to meet and film the world’s most isolated tribes

A new breed of adventurer is chasing internet fame by targeting uncontacted peoples. Critics say they are risking the wellbeing of these remote communities – and their own lives

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Something is Being Born @nabelew.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

oh! did you double take at seeing the conference room map though 😂

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Something is Being Born @nabelew.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

did any other UHM linguistics people double take at this

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Endangered Languages Project @e-l-p.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Happy Music Monday, a series to spotlight music in Indigenous languages around the world! This week we're tuning in to Meghalaya, India, where breakout star Reble has been bringing her language, Khasi, into the top tiers of hip-hop talent:

youtu.be

Terror - Reble (prod by Tre Ess) | Shillong

YouTube video by Reble

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Alex @purplechrain.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

On the subject of Dolly’s union/working class solidarity, her 9 to 5 LP included Woody Guthrie’s ´Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)’, a protest song about the racist mistreatment & media coverage of exploited Mexican farm workers who died when the plane deporting them crashed in 1948.

youtu.be

Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)

YouTube video by Dolly Parton - Topic

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Something is Being Born @nabelew.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

Finally getting around to A Woman of the Iron People, after the rare experience of an employee at PDX’s superb SFF bookshop Parallel Worlds listening to four or five of my faves and recommending the same author’s Ring of Swords (liked!) I love asking knowledgeable humans for advice

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Ian Boudreau @ianboudreau.com · 23/08/2026

I guess it's kind of hard to view the dismissal of one grublike phrenologist as a major hit to free speech after major American universities have in the past year banned the use of words and eliminated entire departments in the hopes of pleasing the senile president

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Something is Being Born @nabelew.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

making me feel like Shevek reading an economics textbook “like listening to somebody interminably recounting a long and stupid dream”

a page from the Forever War that’s just play-by-play descriptions of soldiers moving around on a military training exercise

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Something is Being Born @nabelew.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

I know Forever War is allegedly one of the greatest SF novels of all time and I’m TRYING but uh if military actions are like the most boring thing I can imagine reading about, is there any reason for me to keep slogging through this? is it going anywhere other than maneuver reports? this is PAINFUL

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Something is Being Born @nabelew.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

huh that’s so weird, why would AI be hated by the side of the political spectrum which is more likely to value the wellbeing and survival of all over the profits and power of the few 🤔

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Endangered Languages Project @e-l-p.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

How can communities teach and strengthen their languages online, even when their speakers are scattered due to war or disasters? In this month's Stories from the Heart, Jacques Muisha Muhabura shared about his work in Goma, DRC, to teach and promote the Kihunde language through social media:

youtube.com

Stories from the Heart: Jacques Muisha Muhabura (Kihunde, DR Congo)

YouTube video by Endangered Languages Project

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Something is Being Born @nabelew.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

grabbed a copy at @powells.bsky.social and the cashier said “I got so excited and curious when this came in because I’m trying to learn my family’s language” so I gave them an @e-l-p.bsky.social button and we both had a pleasant transaction 😌

Copy of How to Kill a Language by Sophia Smith Galer

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Matt Cameron @mattcameron.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

The purity of the rage I have been carrying as I watch Samuel Alito's decision to uphold Donald Trump's signature on Stephen Miller's plan to have Pam Bondi and Marco Rubio end Temporary Protected Status for Haiti as I watch the terror spread is the closest thing science will find to cold fusion

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Matt Cameron @mattcameron.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

Sunday: I spoke to a packed church south of Boston looking to me for answers and could provide next to none Monday: half a dozen unexpectedly detained Haitian clients Tuesday: could only bear witness to the anguish of a detention Wednesday: a scream over the phone that still haunts me now

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Litbowl @litbowl.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

From The Essential W.S. Merwin: bookshop.org/a/862/9781556595134 #poem #booksky #writing

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Something is Being Born @nabelew.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

remember when cool NY Times linguist John McWhorter said “y’all” was “too ethnic” for anyone serious to use

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Will Perkins @williamhperkins.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

This completely unhinged WB promo for Deep Space Nine – an ill conceived attempt to make the most cerebral of Star Trek shows look “cool” – has got a screaming rock dude wailing over a shot of Captain Sisko watching his wife blow up:

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Something is Being Born @nabelew.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

Can we add "killing language by misuse" to the Boomer Takes on Language Diversity bingo card (it can share a spot with "proper English is dying")

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Something is Being Born @nabelew.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

oh yeah and hashtags and feeds exist, OK #langsky, do your thing continuing to remind the world that shrugging and washing our hands of language oppression is Bad and Not Cool

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Something is Being Born @nabelew.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

"Language loss is often a reluctant choice made to escape violence, not a willing choice made to gain benefits." YEP “'It’s not inevitable that endangered languages become extinct,' Bowern argues, because 'political currents don’t have to move in one direction.'” YEPPPP

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Something is Being Born @nabelew.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

Go check out @geraldroche.bsky.social's review of @sophiasgaler.bsky.social's "How to Kill a Language" for a surgical dissection of the history of language oppression denialism, clear and informed reminders of its political nature, and a buncha links to good research (incl. by @chirila.bsky.social):

theconversation.com

Languages are disappearing, and the problem is political

Language loss is often a reluctant choice made to escape violence, not a willing choice made to gain benefits.

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Soraya Nadia McDonald @soraya.press · 31/07/2026

"WE THE FUCKING JUDGE SON" New York, I love you. I love you so fucking much. Via wali_talks on IG

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maybe: annie rauwerda @annierau.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

starting a collection of quotes like this

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Something is Being Born @nabelew.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

I’m assuming it’s a framing used in the book being reviewed, but I’m also not positive the book uses “murder” — “killing” is the term in the book title, and how I much more frequently see the idea expressed

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Something is Being Born @nabelew.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

and here’s my significantly less polished and professional screaming into the void which at least contains some links to other research on racist backlash to Indigenous language revitalization

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Something is Being Born @nabelew.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

GOOD. Even the Facebook comments on it were somehow delivering, I’m glad the wider public won’t uncritically swallow this crap anymore. My colleagues and I spent the last few days fleshing out a response piece:

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Something is Being Born @nabelew.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

My brilliant colleagues at @e-l-p.bsky.social put so much knowledge, time, and care into responding to something no one should ever have to respond to. If you were deeply disgusted and troubled by @newyorker.com’s decision to publish this smug anti-Indigenous garbage, please read this.

endangeredlanguages.com

A Response to “Sometimes It’s O.K. to Let a Language Die” | Endangered Languages Project

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Something is Being Born @nabelew.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

oh I love dark beer flights, let’s get The Wind’s Twelve Porters

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Something is Being Born @nabelew.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

Yup. He posits that India’s language diversity causes civil conflict, if you’re playing Dumbass Takes Bingo. 😬

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