Balinese has about a million speakers; on the other hand, only about a quarter of the population of Bali can still speak it. So it\u2019s in a state of decline, but it still has a solid base, which is why we\u2019re intervening now.<\/p>\n
We are trying to encourage the local population, who is influenced by globalization and nationalization, as many local languages are, to value their own language. But we are also trying to say to the world that local languages are important, that monocultures of any sort are not sustainable, whether they\u2019re languages or agriculture or animal species. The planet thrives on diversity. Even though a person may not have a particular connection to a local language, there is value in having a diversity of local languages in the world.<\/p>\n
Q: How did you choose to structure your revitalization efforts? Why a wiki?<\/h4>\n
A:<\/strong> It actually started with a dictionary written by Fred Eiseman, who was an American who lived in Bali for years and wrote about everything Balinese under the sun. He died about five years ago, and his widow, via Eiseman\u2019s assistant, Linud, bequeathed us the dictionary \u2014 on condition that we make it public. So that was the original piece of the wiki. We started it in 2014, and through the years we\u2019ve expanded from Eiseman\u2019s dictionary to including thousands more words and sample sentences \u2014 contributed by the community \u2014 and an encyclopedia section as well.<\/p>\n We also wanted to engage both the local and the international communities, both scholars and community members, to work together to create this resource. We felt that there was a real value in getting these groups to be actively engaged, not for us to create it in a vacuum.<\/p>\n When we looked around, Wikipedia was just getting going, and we thought, that\u2019s it! We\u2019ll use wiki technology, which is engaging, and which is shown to be pretty reliable and accurate \u2014 which astounded people at the time. We thought that this could be a new way of engaging people and creating resources at the same time. This could create that really important link between scholars and community members, which is hard to bridge.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Balinese script on parchment<\/p><\/div>\n A:<\/strong> Let\u2019s start with an easy word: basa <\/em>is a Balinese word; it means \u201clanguage\u201d or \u201cspice.\u201d I love that combination, that double meaning. This is a typical entry: you have the word in Balinese [using the Roman alphabet] and, if possible, the word in Balinese script.<\/p>\n We have the definitions, and those are entered by a 15-person team of linguists, and another team of about seven or eight Master’s or Ph.D. students in linguistics. Then we ask the community to give us sample sentences, using the word in context with the kind of language that they use now, and we have a team of editors translating the sentences into English and Indonesian. People send us photos and videos too, so that users can see and hear people using Balinese in context. Our next plan is to tag the videos and photos to Google Maps so that we can capture regional variations.<\/p>\n As I mentioned,\u00a0basa <\/em>means \u201cspice\u201d as well as \u201clanguage,\u201d so someone sent us a photo of Balinese spices. Someone else sent us a video saying a sentence using the word \u201cbasa.\u201d Not all of our users have internet service, so sometimes people just hand us a flash drive with videos to upload to the wiki.<\/p>\n This is the entry for the word “basa” on the BASAbali wiki. Notice the definitions and the word in Balinese script on the top left, the different levels and forms of the word on the top right (which, for this word, have not yet been submitted to the wiki), and the user-submitted photograph at the bottom.<\/p><\/div>\n A:<\/strong> Balinese is traditionally an oral language.\u00a0The sacred texts of Bali are written in Kawi using Aksara Bali <\/em>(Balinese script). Balinese script is taught in schools for about an hour or two a week, and there\u2019s a push to teach every schoolchild the ability to write and read in this script.\u00a0But for the most part, Balinese is now written in Latin letters. It’s a very complicated writing system and there has been difficulty in getting the Unicode for the script<\/a> to work completely accurately, so social media has reduced the use of the script even more. To encourage as much participation as possible, we decided that the wiki would primarily use Latin letters as the regular interface, but to also provide a way for entry words to be written in Balinese script.<\/p>\n A:<\/strong> Our primary challenge is internet service! Large sections of Bali do not have internet access in their homes (including the homes of our linguists!).\u00a0People access the internet through mobile hot spots through which they can easily text and access Facebook, but they do not have sufficient bandwidth to upload videos or to access the wiki website. A volunteer just made an app that streamlines access and editing, but internet access, especially for uploading videos, is still a problem. We’re now working on developing an app game to engage young adults more actively in the site.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/planetwordmuseum.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Screen-Shot-2018-07-20-at-11.06.31-AM.png\")
\n<\/h4>\n
Q: Could you walk us through the wiki a little bit?<\/h4>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/planetwordmuseum.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Balinese-script-sample.jpeg\")
![\"](\"http:\/\/planetwordmuseum.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Screenshot-of-the-definition-for-basa-featuring-definitions-and-pictures.png\")
Q: Did you run into any problems with the writing system when creating the wiki?<\/h4>\n
Q: What other challenges have you faced in trying to put Balinese online?<\/h4>\n