Monthly Archives: April 2010

Mightyverse used on a pilot project to support Hawaiian revitalization

Then There Were None Documentary FilmThe co-founders of Mightyverse came together to work on Mightyverse out of a love of language. It’s heartbreaking that of the 7000 or so languages spoken throughout the world today, some believe that over half of them could be extinct on a practical level by the end of this century. We are hopeful that Mightyverse has the potential to help in the global effort to revitalize endangered languages, and this is a big part of what drives us to make Mightyverse useful to the world. It’s hard to imagine, but with approx. 1000 fluent speakers and less than 10,000 active speakers, Hawaiian is on the list of endangered languages that could conceivably die out over the next 100 years.

Needless to say, this would be a tremendous tragedy for the world.

Fortunately there are very good efforts going on to grow the speaking community, including immersion schools, television programs and passionate individual efforts. And yet the resources on the web to answer the question “How would I say that in Hawaiian?” are still fairly limited. We are extremely excited to have worked with National Geographic Fellow, Dr. Elizabeth Lindsey, on a project to record Hawaiian phrases into Mightyverse. We are currently at 109 phrases and hope to grow that number with the help of other native speakers. Stay tuned as we work to develop a collection of Hawaiian language that can be useful for people who want to have Hawaiian language and culture live on through them!

Here’s a fun place to start – some great Hawaiian phrases to practice.

A short video interview with Dr. Lindsey on her project with Mightyverse.

(see a trailer and learn more about Elizabeth’s film Then There Were None here)

Travel to Europe

A plume of ash rises from the volcano in southern Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull glacier. Photograph: Brynjar Gauti/AP

Photograph: Brynjar Gauti/AP

The last couple of days I was at LAX trying to go to Paris. Our flight was canceled three times, so we gave up our trip.

C’est dommage!

Currently we don’t have a lot of French phrases for airport situations, but we hope some new phrases will help people.

These phrases for airport problems are available here.

“What time is the first flight tomorrow?” in Portuguese.

“Is that the last flight out?” in Italian.

This week we are planing to update phrases for airport problems in European languages . If you are an iPhone user, you will see these phrases show up on your Mightyverse app.

この数日、パリに行くためにロサンゼルスの空港に行っていました。3度私達のフライトがキャンセルされたので、今回の旅行をあきらめせざるおえませんでした。現在、マイティーバースには、フランス語の空港のフレーズは、あまりありませんが、いくつかのフレーズがフランスの空港での人の手助けになることを祈っています。

他の言語の空港のフレーズ

ロシア語で、「私のフライトは、遅れています。」は、どういうのでしょうか?

ポルトガル語で、「明日の最初のフライトは何時ですか?」は、どういうのでしょうか?

イタリア語で、「最後のフライトは、出発しましたか?」は、どういうのでしょうか?

今週は、ヨーロッパの空港に関するフレーズを掲載したいと思います。iPhoneをお持ちの方は、マイティーバースのiPhoneアプからもご覧頂けます。