The Internet and indigenous language use: A Filipino case study

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe Internet is a potentially non-coercive technology which has the capacity to facilitate the development and dissemination of locally-relevant and culturally-appropriate discourse. Many countries, especially those in Europe, have moved to utilise the Internet as a resource for expressing and revitalising their autochthonous languages, in response to cultural pressures from globalisation. However, there has been little evaluation of whether the Internet might give rise to a renaissance of indigenous language use in the postcolonial Asia-Pacific region. In this paper, we examine the case of the Philippines, which this year celebrates a centenary of independence from Spain, to determine whether introduction of the Internet has in fact enhanced the provision of indigenous language information services. We sampled 1% of the Internet sites listed in a popular search engine, in each second-level domain (educational, commercial, government and non-government organisations), and found very little evidence of indigenous language use in any of the sites in these categories. This suggests that the Internet has not yet realised its potential as a medium for indigenous language use in the Philippines, but that greater awareness of its capabilities in this arena might change the situation in the future.