Social networking sites are doing more than we thought for language! Language expert and author David Crystal says that the internet “through blogs, instant messaging, chat rooms and sites such as Wikipedia, MySpace and YouTube, is making less-common languages cool. This means that teenagers texting in Welsh or Cherokee may pass their languages along to their own children one day” which is critical for language survival.

“The Internet offers endangered languages a chance to have a public voice in a way that would not have been possible before,” Crystal said in an interview quoted in the New Zealand Herald (http://www.nzherald.co.nz).

Since 50% of languages are endangered, according to Crystal, and money ”government or organizational support” may determine which ones can find their place in the virtual world.