This Special Collection, titled ‘The Digital Lives of Greater South Languages‘ edited by Dr Isabelle Zaugg, explores digitally-supported language revitalization, trade-offs of digital inclusion, and the fight for the right to type in one’s script. In doing so, the following essays reinvoke our capacity to dream within and about our digital-linguistic future. To introduce the collection, we invited Dr Zaugg for an interview to discuss the importance of this body of work and expand on some of its central ideas.
Q&A with Dr Isabelle Zaugg
1. What are the parameters of the Greater South languages explored in this collection, and why is it a useful framework for thinking about linguistic inequality and digital technology?
As I outline in the introduction to the special issue “The Digital Lives of Greater South Languages,” the term “Greater South” is a departure from the ubiquitous “Global South” terminology. While loosely geographic, the phrase “Greater South” arises from a desire to respond to the development interests of the South by drawing on perspectives, expertise, and resources from the South. To date, this has not been the norm in the development sphere, nor often in the sphere of digital development. However, the term “Greater South” also foregrounds that development driven by the South should serve the interest of humanity as a whole, including the North (12). H.E. Manssour Bin Mussallam, the Secretary-General of the Organisation of Southern Cooperation and a contributor to the special issue, coined this term to foreground a new form of multilateralism based on equality, equity, and solidarity across communities, countries, and regions, as well as the importance of mutual cooperation in addressing the development challenges of our era (5). The term is broad in that it encompasses vastly diverse countries, peoples and cultures who simultaneously share systemic realities, challenges and aspirations (5), while also acknowledging that there is a “South of the North,” and a “North in the South” (12).
A shift away from a purely geographic lens on language diversity was important in the context of this special issue, since the distribution of language diversity, digitally-disadvantaged languages Zaugg et al., “Digitally-Disadvantaged Languages”), as well as vibrant re-workings of technology within language communities for whom digital tools were not originally designed, are largely based in the South yet cut across all geographical regions of the world. Additionally, I appreciate that the term “Greater South” foregrounds the interests, and perspectives of communities within the Greater South – which this special issue aims to do as well – while maintaining the noble aim to serve the interests of humanity as a whole in our multilingual digital neighborhood. I also value that the term highlights the importance of the relationships among language communities across the Greater South, since leveraging common aspirations for digital-linguistic innovation can be a powerful means for building a more linguistically diverse and vibrant digital sphere, a common thread throughout the special issue.
2. You discuss the fact that digital infrastructure was not originally designed for many of the world’s languages. In what ways might this design bias show up in everyday communication for speakers of Greater South languages?
For many speakers of Greater South languages, seamlessly using technologies that English-speakers take for granted is not possible. For many, their mother tongue or preferred language and/or writing system is not supported within major operating systems, platforms, or apps, which makes it inconvenient or impossible to use these tools. Unless they are bilingual or multilingual and choose to switch to a well-supported language while using digital tools (which has implications on broader patterns of language shift affecting many languages of the Greater South), this may limit their options to using tools that are by-and-large language agnostic, like voice calls, voice messages, and video-based social media platforms like Youtube and TikTok.
In terms of writing in Greater South languages, as Anushah Hossain’s article in the special issue addresses, if one’s preferred script is not supported by Unicode, it will not be possible to type in your script on major devices, platforms, and apps. This often leads to the “choice” to type in a digitally-dominant script like Latin rather than in one’s own script and writing system (Zaugg, “Imagining a Multilingual Cyberspace”). Even when basic levels of support are in place for a language and writing system, such as Unicode encoding, a keyboard, and fonts – addressed in my interview with Kamal Mansour in the special issue – many users can afford devices that provide full and updated support for their language.
Even when foundational supports are in place, gaps in higher-level supports often present additional challenges. For example, autocorrect often inconveniently “corrects” one’s writing from a preferred language to English or another default language within an app. Affordances like machine translation may not function well or at all in one’s language, leading to complications including inaccurate automatic translations of one’s social media posts, as addressed in Amandallyne Paullada and Levon Haroutunian’s article in the special issue. Additionally, key information like Terms of Service on major platforms may not be translated into one’s language, or essential terminology within them such as “privacy” may not effectively translate into one’s language (Jack et al. 19), leading to dangerous gaps in knowledge when navigating multilingual digital spaces. As Peter Chonka, Stephanie Diepeveen and Yidnekachew Haile’s article in the special issue highlights, even long-awaited linguistic inclusion in tools like search autocomplete and generative AI comes with its own complications for Greater South language speakers; this includes the prevalence of divisive and toxic auto-generated suggestions and content that has the potential to cause real harm.
While many Greater South language communities seek full digital-linguistic inclusion through “full stack language enablement” (Loomis et al.), this is not true for all. Additionally, potential harms caused by the surveillance of communications within Greater South language communities and the negative impacts of integration into data-capitalist systems is also a concern within many Greater South language communities, as they consider the double-edged-sword of digital-linguistic inclusion (Zaugg, “Language Justice in the Digital Sphere”).
In short, language bias appears at almost every level of digital communication. There is still much work to be done to support both digital-linguistic inclusion (when desired by Greater South language communities) and digital language justice in terms of the long-term impacts on communities and the future of their languages (Zaugg, “Language Justice in the Digital Sphere”). As such, I believe both practitioner contribution and scholarly work in this area is essential.
3. Can you share examples from the collection that illustrate how communities are creatively adapting technology to support their languages despite structural barriers?
The special issue highlights many examples of Greater South language communities creatively adapting and re-writing technology to support their languages, as well as visionary proposals for the future of Greater South languages in the digital sphere. While I note several examples below, I cannot do justice to these examples in this abbreviated format. Therefore, I warmly encourage readers to study the full articles noted below.
María Alvarez Malvido uses testimonio as a scholarly and activist methodology to explore how Indigenous digital innovators “re-write” technology as a form of resistance. Through the stories of filmmaker and game designer Kyle Napier and community radio broadcaster Lilia Pérez, her article weaves together themes of language revitalization, collective memory, territorial rights, and self-determination, facilitated through the use and reshaping of digital technologies.
Michael Running Wolf’s interview with me traces his path-defining work to revitalize Indigenous North American languages through AI, including an AI teaching tool designed for communities with limited access to fluent speakers and teachers. He also speaks to the importance of data sovereignty, grassroots coding education, and a guiding philosophy of “creating speakers, not technologies” as Indigenous communities adapt technologies to support a language-rich future and the “ecology of Indigenous thought.”
Payal Arora examines how “the next billion users” — many of them women — are shaping digital spaces through hybrid languages, slang, emoji, voice tools, and viral content, in both private spaces and highly-surveilled digital spaces. She also advocates for tech companies to adopt a consumer-focused approach to better serve the interests of Greater South language communities.
I would also note two articles that operate in a visionary and speculative approach to how Greater South language communities can creatively adapt digital technologies to serve their collective aspirations. Kyra Ann Dawkins examines the historical severing of African Americans from their ancestral languages due to the transatlantic slave trade and proposes “language 4R” — reparation, reappropriation, reclamation, and restoration — as a pathway to foster renewed connections with African language communities. She proposes transcontinental digital communication as a means to build language fluency and community, healing the wounds of lost language identity while simultaneously advancing the digital development for African languages.
My conversation with H.E. Manssour Bin Mussallam offers a macro-level Greater South perspective on language revitalization, exploring the role of multilateralism, digital technologies, and South-South cooperation in advancing linguistic sovereignty. Central to his vision is a call to decolonize our linguistic imagination — to believe that Greater South languages can once again become living vehicles for intellectual tradition, knowledge production, and everyday communication, facilitated by digital tools built through South-South innovation and cooperation.
4. The collection brings together scholars and practitioners across disciplines and formats. Why was it important for you to include testimonials, interviews, and conversations alongside more traditional academic articles?
The digital lives of Greater South languages exist in a dynamic landscape, yet a dearth of scholarship on this broad subject prevails. A motivation to produce this journal issue was to inspire more scholarly attention to this important area of research.
Scholarship in this arena is studying phenomena in “real time” rather than distant history. As such, I felt that it was important to include the voices of practitioners whose praxis, i.e. combination of intellectual motivation and action, is highly relevant to understanding the digital lives of Greater South languages. I believe it is important to challenge the binary between knowing and doing within knowledge development. As such, I see this special issue as an example of transdisciplinary research practice, which places value on scholarship that bridges academic fields, as well as incorporates practitioner knowledge, centers community perspectives, and valorizes context-specific expertise.
I decided therefore to incorporate various forms of oral history, including testimonios (Malvido), interviews (Mansour and Zaugg; Arora and Zaugg; Running Wolf and Zaugg) and a conversation (Bin Mussallam and Zaugg) into the special issue. This multiplicity of forms also accommodates speculative reflections on possible futures for the digital lives of Greater South languages, which I felt was important in terms of mapping imaginaries in this dynamic space in addition to capturing current realities. Beyond further research, I also hope that the special issue inspires future praxis in this vital field.
5. You describe the collection as an invitation to join an emerging field of study and collective action. What do you hope researchers, technologists, and language communities will take away from this collection, and where could this area of work be taken next?
In line with the definition of the “Greater South,” this special issue aims to provide knowledge that can help guide the further development of a digital multilingual neighborhood that supports a vibrant digital life for Greater South languages. This will only be possible if researchers, technologists, and language communities all contribute in their own capacity, and in many cases cooperate within and across Greater South languages to make this vision a reality.
This volume is only a starting point for the many directions that study and praxis to digitally support Greater South languages may progress. I look forward to discovering how our special issue contributes to this vital field of study and practice, as well as witnessing how others take up the torch and advance this field in the future.
Read the Special Collection OA online >
Table of Contents
Isabelle Alice Zaugg
Introduction to the Special Collection “The Digital Lives of Greater South Languages”
María Alvarez Malvido
Technology Rewriting: Testimonio as a Methodology to Learn from People’s Stories
Manssour Bin Mussallam and Isabelle Alice Zaugg
Reconquering our Capacity to Dream in Revitalizing our Languages: A Conversation between HE Manssour Bin Mussallam and Isabelle Alice Zuagg on 3 August 2025
Michael Running Wolf and Isabelle Alice Zaugg
Harnessing AI to Build the Ecology of Indigenous Thoughts: An Interview with Michael Running Wolf by Isabelle Alice Zaugg on 4 April 2025
Kyra Ann Dawkins
Language 4R: Discussing the Roots of Language Identity in the African American Community
Peter Chonka, Stephanie Diepeveen and Yidnekachew Haile
“No Language Left Behind?”: Predictive Text, Generative AI and Dilemmas of Digital Inclusion for Marginalized Languages
Amandalynne Paullada and Levon Haroutunian
Language Justice and Machine Translation on Social Media
Anushah Hossain
Unsettled Scripts: Script Invention and the Bind of Digital Recognition
Kamal Mansour and Isabelle Alice Zaugg
Typography Behind Latin: Cultivating Visual Culture at the Crossroads of Digital Access and Technical Policy: An Interview with Kamal Mansour by Isabelle Alice Zaugg on 9 October 2021
Payal Arora and Isabelle Alice Zaugg
Language and the Next Billion Users: An Interview with Payal Arora by Isabelle Alice Zaugg on 30 September 2021
Read more from Modern Languages Open >
Works cited:
Arora, Payal. The Next Billion Users: Digital Life Beyond the West. Harvard University Press, 2019. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv24trdj9.
Arora, Payal, and Isabelle Alice Zaugg. “Language and the Next Billion Users: An Interview with Payal Arora by Isabelle Alice Zaugg on 30 September 2021.” Modern Languages Open, vol. 0, no. 1, Mar. 2026. modernlanguagesopen.org, https://doi.org/10.3828/mlo.v0i0.574.
Bin Mussallam, Manssour. “Why the Greater South?” Organisation of Southern Cooperation (OSC), https://osc.int/sg_dialogues/why-the-greater-south/. Accessed 21 Jan. 2026.
Chonka, Peter, et al. “‘No Language Left Behind?’ Predictive Text, Generative AI and Dilemmas of Digital Inclusion for Marginalized Languages.” Modern Languages Open, vol. 0, no. 1, Mar. 2026. modernlanguagesopen.org, https://doi.org/10.3828/mlo.v0i0.465.
Dawkins, Kyra Ann. “Language 4R: Discussing the Roots of Language Identity in the African American Community.” Modern Languages Open, vol. 0, no. 1, Mar. 2026. modernlanguagesopen.org, https://doi.org/10.3828/mlo.v0i0.487.
Hossain, Anushah. “Unsettled Scripts: Script Invention and the Bind of Digital Recognition.” Modern Languages Open, vol. 0, no. 1, Mar. 2026. modernlanguagesopen.org, https://doi.org/10.3828/mlo.v0i0.590.
Jack, Margaret C., et al. “‘Privacy Is Not a Concept, but a Way of Dealing with Life’: Localization of Transnational Technology Platforms and Liminal Privacy Practices in Cambodia.” Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact., vol. 3, no. CSCW, Nov. 2019, p. 128:1-128:19. ACM Digital Library, https://doi.org/10.1145/3359230.
Loomis, Steven R., et al. “Full Stack Language Enablement.” Steven R. Loomis, 6 Jun. 2017, https://srl295.github.io/2017/06/06/full-stack-enablement/.
Malvido, María Alvarez. “Technology Rewriting: Testimonio as a Methodology to Learn from People’s Stories.” Modern Languages Open, vol. 0, no. 1, Mar. 2026. modernlanguagesopen.org, https://doi.org/10.3828/mlo.v0i0.477.
Mansour, Kamal, and Isabelle Alice Zaugg. “Typography Beyond Latin: Cultivating Visual Culture at the Crossroads of Digital Access and Technical Policy: An Interview with Kamal Mansour by Isabelle Alice Zaugg on 9 October 2021.” Modern Languages Open, vol. 0, no. 1, Mar. 2026. modernlanguagesopen.org, https://doi.org/10.3828/mlo.v0i0.573.
Mussallam, Manssour Bin, and Isabelle Alice Zaugg. “Reconquering Our Capacity to Dream in Revitalizing Our Languages: A Conversation between HE Manssour Bin Mussallam and Isabelle Alice Zaugg on 3 August 2025.” Modern Languages Open, vol. 0, no. 1, Mar. 2026. modernlanguagesopen.org, https://doi.org/10.3828/mlo.v0i0.587.
Paullada, Amandalynne, and Levon Haroutunian. “Language Justice and Machine Translation on Social Media.” Modern Languages Open, vol. 0, no. 1, Mar. 2026. modernlanguagesopen.org, https://doi.org/10.3828/mlo.v0i0.466.
Wolf, Michael Running, and Isabelle Alice Zaugg. “Harnessing AI to Build the Ecology of Indigenous Thoughts: An Interview with Michael Running Wolf by Isabelle Alice Zaugg on 4 April 2025.” Modern Languages Open, vol. 0, no. 1, Mar. 2026. modernlanguagesopen.org, https://doi.org/10.3828/mlo.v0i0.578.
Zaugg, Isabelle Alice, et al. “Digitally-Disadvantaged Languages.” Internet Policy Review, vol. 11, no. 2, Apr. 2022. policyreview.info, https://doi.org/10.14763/2022.2.1654.
———. “Imagining a Multilingual Cyberspace.” Finding Ctrl: Visions for the Future Internet, with Abel Tilahun, Nesta, 2019, https://findingctrl.nesta.org.uk/imagining-a-multilingual-cyberspace/. Next Generation Internet.
———. “Introduction to the Special Collection ‘The Digital Lives of Greater South Languages.’” Modern Languages Open, vol. 0, no. 1, Mar. 2026. modernlanguagesopen.org, https://doi.org/10.3828/mlo.v0i0.601.
———. “Language Justice in the Digital Sphere.” Global Language Justice, edited by Lydia H. Liu and Anupama Rao, with Charlotte Silverman, Columbia University Press, 2023, pp. 244–73, https://cup.columbia.edu/book/global-language-justice/9780231210393.
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