New technology helping preserve small Pacific communities: New Zealand researcher

Mobile phones, computers and other modern forms of communication are actually helping to protect minority cultures, rather than erode them as is commonly thought, a New Zealand researcher said Friday.

Victoria University Professor of Linguistics Miriam Meyerhoff, a sociolinguist, said technology in the Pacific island nation of Vanuatu was helping "put the brakes on" the negative effects of urbanization and migration on small communities.

Meyerhoff spent the last eight years studying the northeastern village of Hog Harbour, where the locals speak Nkep, one of more than 110 languages in Vanuatu.

"Urbanization and migration are bad news for small languages because people get taken away from the high-density, high-communication networks of the village," Meyerhoff said in a statement.

"But what I'm seeing is people using things like mobile phones, e-mail and the Internet to stay in touch and so they are continuing to speak Nkep. The technology provides an extended community," she said.

"People are pretty savvy about the opportunities new technology provides them with."

Minority cultures in Vanuatu have long been concerned about the survival of their languages with the encroachment of Bislama -- an English-based local dialect -- and English. Endit