According to International Expert Meeting on UNESCO Programme Safeguarding of Endangered Languages (2003) "Raising awareness about language loss and language diversity will only be successful when meaningful contemporary roles for minority languages can be established, for the requirements of modern life within the community as well as in national and international contexts. Meaningful contemporary roles include the use of these languages in everyday life, commerce, education, writing, the arts, and/or the media." We found that the characters set of Oroo' language is limited. There is a gap between normal expression and the existing characterless of Oroo' language. For example, there is no sign to ask questions such as "how are you?", or "where are you?", which is a common expression in daily life. To address this issue and to make Oroo' relevant in daily life, in this project we are developing the Penan’s Oroo’ Short Message Signs (PO-SMS) application that will extend Oroo' to the current technology driven communication means. Following a community-based co-design approach, a group of local youth and elders have led the unique design of their own digital indigenous communication tool. Following the design, students from HTW-Berlin has developed an online platform ( for communication in Oroo' language. For further details please refer to our publication.

 

Research Outcomes 

Awards

  • The IFIP Brian Shackel Award 2015 for the paper Penan’s Oroo Short Message Signs (PO-SMS): Co-design of A Digital Jungle Sign Language Application, 16 September 2015 Bamberg, Germany (http://ifip-tc13.org/awards/)
  • The IFIP Interaction Design for International Development (IDID) Award 2015, for the paper Penan’s Oroo Short Message Signs (PO-SMS): Co-design of A Digital Jungle Sign Language Application, 16 September 2015 Bamberg, Germany (http://ifip-tc13.org/awards/)

Project Team

  • Tariq Zaman, Alvin W. Yeo (Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, Malaysia)
  • Heike Winschiers-Theophilus (Polytecnic of Namibia) 
  • Garen Jengan (Long Lamai Community)