An Analytical Overview on Digitization of Language and Communication- From Humanities to Technological Advancement

Abstract

Teaching and learning has undergone manifold changes. In today’s digital world the story of printing sounds anterior. The history of writing goes back to the time of the development of expression in the form of marks or proto-writing. This marks and symbols limited communication. The ideas were presented using ideography (symbol to present idea or concepts) or early mnemonics (memory device that aids in sequence information retention). This was as late as 7th century BC. The technique of writing has progressed variedly in different civilization. The need and urge to save the culture and tradition must have given the push to learn to read and write to the cavemen. The gradual process of making marks and proto-writing became an inspiration that lead them to this art of giving materialistic shape to the words they spoke. A tradition, that was seen on the terracotta tablets, papyrus, amate, paper and now finding its place in database. The pace, though sometimes appears to be slow but in a short span of two thousand years has witnessed a drastic makeover. Language digitization is nothing new but a way of documenting the language to save the data present in the forms of book and several manuscripts. No doubt it has not taken that wider outlook, where it is predicted by the world linguists that two third of the language of this world will become extinct by the end of this century. The pursuit here is to save what we can at the moment but the language which is not in the database of the linguists is most vulnerable one.