Current situation and path of foreign minority language protection based on Internet of Things from the perspective of ethnic identity

Abstract

Ethnic identity is an important reason for national unity. The formation of ethnic groups is mostly due to external and internal reasons, with a complex mechanism structure. When people’s environment is destroyed, this value identity will be stronger, national cohesion and solidarity will grow sharply, an unprecedented high. Minority languages are characterized by a wide variety, cultural generation, and dynamic evolution. The languages are complex and diverse, and are deeply influenced by their cultural heritage. This has led to the fact that for a long time, minority languages have been learned almost exclusively by people of their own ethnic group. This has led to a steady decline in the number of minority language speakers. However, the birth of the Internet of Things (IoT) has created an opportunity for the development of minority languages. Foreign minority languages have the following status (1) rapid decline (2) many endangered languages (3) low willingness to learn. In order to further investigate the current situation of minority language protection, the team conducted a survey in the minority cluster A. The results of the survey are as follows: most of the villagers are in love with the ethnic language and must inherit and promote the ethnic language, which is the wealth of a nation, but there are also a few residents who think that Mandarin should be used to replace the ethnic language. This reflects that most of the residents love the national language, but their young people as the inherited generation lose their love for the national language and are not willing to inherit and promote it. To solve this problem, an Internet of Things (IoT)-based ethnic language data system has been constructed so that the data system for ethnic minority language protection built through IoT technology can become the last line of defense for protecting ethnic languages, while allowing ethnic languages to be known and understood by more people through IoT technology, fostering the love and reverence of ethnic minority people for ethnic languages, and enhancing other ethnic groups’ sense of identity and support for ethnic languages. We propose to protect minority languages. Ultimately, we propose recommendations for the preservation of minority languages. (1) Increase publicity for minority language preservation. (2) Construct laws and regulations related to minority language protection. (3) Conduct in-depth research on minority language work and build an information base. (4) Promote minority language education.

Keywords

Ethnic identity Internet of Things foreign minority current situation of language protection

1. Introduction

The term “ethnic group” originated in Western countries and is similar to the concept of “race” in China. It is generally believed that an ethnic group is a group of people who share the same religious beliefs, language habits, customs, and physical and geographical origins of their ancestors within a large area. The concept of “ethnic group” is formed during migration, and is a further extension of the concept of kinship, in which people share common beliefs about a common space due to changes in geographic location caused by migration. This concept is a further extension of kinship. The “clan” has developed over thousands of years and has been expressed in later times as the spontaneous coming together of a people, which is spontaneous and rightly considered by outsiders as one. There is another view on the formation of the group, where some people are unable to adapt to the larger group due to the peculiarities of their language and customs, leading to their exclusion by the majority and forcing them to live in ethnic habitats. The formation of ethnic groups is not only the pursuit of self-awareness by ethnic minorities, respect for their customs and language and culture, but also the role of objective environment [1, 2].

The Internet of Things (IoT) is the Internet of things, which aims to connect things through IoT sensors and RFID technology to promote the development of information technology. The Internet has been widely used in several emerging fields since its birth. IoT technology combines knowledge in the field of computing and communication, knowledge in the field of communication, and knowledge in the field of information processing, and finally uses miniature sensors everywhere for real-time monitoring, collecting various information about the environment and people through sensors, and conducting preliminary processing of information through miniature processing systems embedded inside the sensors, and transmitting the information to the central controller through the communication The information is initially processed by the micro-processing system embedded in the sensor and transmitted to the central controller through the communication network. The rapid development of IoT technology has led to a wide range of applications in smart home and green agriculture. The rise of IoT has given an opportunity for development in all walks of life, and the preservation of minority languages is no exception. The basic model of net networking is shown in Fig. 1 [3].

Figure 1.

IoT usage model.

Language is the core component of culture, and the distinctive languages of different ethnic groups are an important part of the world culture. At present, the minority languages in the world are mainly divided into Sino-Tibetan, Altaic, South Asian, South Island and Indo-European. Some ethnic groups like to speak “backwards”, some like to put the postposition of the gerund, and different languages have different pronunciation systems. Minority languages are diverse, culturally generated, and dynamically evolving, and the development of languages is a dynamic process that is influenced by cultural heritage. This has led to the fact that for a long time, minority languages have been learned almost exclusively by people of their own ethnic group. This has led to a steady decline in the number of minority language speakers. But the birth of the Internet of Things (IoT) has brought a machine to the development of minority languages. The birth of IoT uses perception technology to realize language conversion, which is a record of minority languages from semantics to language syntax through perceptron technology, storing some niche languages in the database through IoT, replicating endangered languages, and comprehensively protecting minority languages [4, 5].

2. Status of minority language protection abroad

According to incomplete statistics, nearly 200 languages are endangered in India, 192 languages are endangered in the United States, and 147 languages are endangered in Indonesia. These three countries are ranked first, second, and third on the language endangerment map, which indicates that all over the world are facing the risk of language endangerment, and language endangerment has become a major dilemma faced by the global community. The fact that multiple languages are endangered represents a global trend in language endangerment, and language endangerment is a phenomenon that deserves global attention. Language is an important part of culture, and the protection of language is the protection of world culture. A national language is a concentrated expression of a nation’s thinking habits, ideas and customs, and is a valuable asset that has been inherited and innovated by the nation for generations, which is priceless. But nowadays, many languages are facing endangerment. The scope of language endangerment is expanding and the trend is accelerating, and the endangerment of minority languages has become a major problem that needs to be solved urgently [6, 7].

2.1 Rapid decline

With the advancement of economic globalization, English has become a common language in the process of communication in order to promote political, economic and cultural exchanges among many countries. Many young people have fewer opportunities to speak dialects because of the necessity to use standard languages in their work and life. And because some national languages are too complex, this has led some young people to be reluctant to learn them, choosing simpler and more common languages as their everyday language. Today, some national languages are only encountered by older people, and more and more of them are on the verge of extinction due to the low number of speakers. According to incomplete statistics, there are hundreds of languages spoken by less than 10,000 people. According to the world’s rules for endangered languages, a language is considered endangered when it is spoken by less than 1,000 people. For example, Ainu, a Japanese language, is spoken by only a fraction of the population on Kuril Island, and Apiaka, a minority language in Brazil, are all endangered languages. Figure 2 shows the trend of language decline in the last six years between 2017 and 2022 in India, the United States, and Indonesia, the countries with the most severe language decline. It can be seen that the index of ethno-linguistic decline in all three countries has increased significantly. This indicates that the state of the world’s ethnolinguistic development is not optimistic.

Figure 2.

Ethno-linguistic decline index.

2.2 Many endangered languages

According to incomplete statistics, there are 2,474 languages in the world that are in an endangered state, and on average, one language dies every 14 days. There are now 6,700 languages in the world, and about 40% of them are on the verge of extinction. The endangerment of a national language is generally due to a combination of its internal and external causes. Most of the external factors are due to conflicts and integration between countries and ethnic groups, including population distribution, ethnic division and integration, and social changes. At the same time, English has become a common language due to the continuous promotion of economic globalization and more frequent inter-ethnic and inter-national communication. Various business exchanges, teaching requirements, and diplomatic exchanges must use English to communicate due to the specificity of their work, which, to a certain extent, has led to the continuous decline of national languages. In the world, nearly half of the languages are in an endangered state, and this number is growing, with a growing crisis of language varieties in the world. Figure 3 shows the number of endangered language varieties in recent years for the most endangered countries, which shows the serious decline of national languages [8, 9].

Figure 3.

Number of endangered ethnic languages.

2.3 Low willingness to learn

Some ethnic minority languages have a small number of speakers due to their low popularity and small application range, and the difficulty of learning the language due to its overly complex grammar, semantics, and pronunciation, which leads to many young people’s reluctance to learn ethnic languages. According to incomplete statistics, most young people in ethnic minority regions are not willing to learn ethnic languages. The fact that most speakers of ethnic languages are middle-aged and elderly also means that the transmission of the world’s ethnic languages is in question, and some languages are about to die out as the older generation passes away. Young people are reluctant to learn ethnic languages mainly for the following reasons: (1) Social and work communication requires more common standard languages, and learning ethnic languages increases the burden and pressure to learn. (2) Ethnic languages are difficult to learn. (3) The teaching of ethnic languages is boring, and there is a lack of interest in learning ethnic languages. (4) They believe that ethnic languages will eventually be eliminated and there is no need to learn them. The specific proportions are shown in Table 1.

Table 1
Reasons for young people’s reluctance to learn ethnic languages

Project	Proportion
Learning pressure is big	0.3
Learning is difficult	0.24
Lack of interest	0.26
No need.	0.2

3. Questionnaire survey

3.1 Investigation process

Survey purpose: In order to investigate the current situation of minority language protection and the ways to protect it, we conducted a survey on minority tribes in Area A, to investigate the reasons for the endangerment of minority languages in Area A, and to make suggestions for the current situation of ethnic language development in Area A [10, 11]. Survey program: 50 villagers aged 20–30, 50 aged 30–40, 50 aged 50–60, and 50 aged 60–70 were randomly selected in Area A for the ethnic language survey, and were interviewed separately about their views on the ethnic language and their mastery of the ethnic language.

Survey data: Our interviewers first interviewed these 200 villagers about their views on the ethnic language, and the specific data obtained are shown in Table 2.

Table 2
Views of 200 villagers on ethnic languages

Perspective	Proportion
National language is a precious wealth, it must be inherited	60%
The national language is valuable, but under the pressure of life must use standard language	15%
National language is obscure and should be replaced by standard language	14%
National language has no meaning of existence and should be replaced as soon as possible	11%

According to the survey results, it can be seen that most villagers love the national language and must inherit and promote it, which is the wealth of a nation, but there are also a small number of residents who think that Mandarin should be used instead of the national language [12, 13].

Then the team investigated the proportion of villages using the ethnic language, and the specific data obtained are shown in Table 3.

Table 3

Proportion of using national language

Age group	Proportion of using national language
20–30 years old	15%
30–40 years old	19%
50–60 years old	45%
60–70 years old	65%
70–	100%

Table 3 shows that most of the ethnic languages spoken in this tribe are older people, especially the middle-aged and older people after the age of 50, which also reflects the problem of transmission of the world’s ethnic languages and the reluctance of the young people to use the ethnic languages. The younger generation is the driving force behind the development, transmission, and innovation of the national language, but the problem faced today is the lack of the younger generation’s willingness to learn and use the national language, and to be the transmitters and innovators of the national language [14, 15].

3.2 Credibility analysis of the survey data

Validity analysis of the data from the questionnaire is an important guarantee of the reliability of the questionnaire results. There is Table 4 shows that the KMO value of validity analysis is 0.736, and according to the criterion of validity analysis, it is known that when the coefficient of validity analysis $>$ 0.06, the data of this experiment is considered to have good reliability.

Table 4
Validity analysis

Project	Factor 1	Factor 2	Factor 3	Factor 4
Eigenvalues (before rotation)	3.196	1.287	2.898	2.999
Variance explanation rate (before rotation)	19.62%	9.64%	10.90%	8.97%
Cumulative variance interpretation rate (before rotation)	16.61%	88.24%	67.13%	47.08%
Eigenvalues (after rotation)	3.88	1.35	4.26	2.15
Variance explained rate % (after rotation)	86.89%	66.68%	69.22%	69.55%
Cumulative variance explained rate % (after rotation)	77.67%	76.63%	79.99%	88.55%
Kmo value	0.736
Barth’s spherical value	0
Df	66

An important criterion of reliability analysis to test the credibility of the questionnaire survey, if the reliability coefficient is less than 0.7, it means that the reliability of this questionnaire survey is not good and cannot be used as this survey data. When the questionnaire survey coefficient is between 0.7 and 0.8, it means that the reliability result is average and can be used as survey data, but the credibility is not high. When the reliability result is between 0.8 and 1, it means that the questionnaire has good credibility. As shown in Table 5, the reliability coefficient of this experiment is 0.869, which is between 0.8 and 1 and has a high reliability.

Table 5

Reliability analysis

Sample size	Number of projects	Cronbach. $\alpha$ coefficient
200	10	0.869

3.3 Investigation conclusion

After the above investigation, the team developed the following main problems in the protection of foreign national languages (1) Young people are reluctant to learn the national languages, resulting in the lack of successors in the transmission of the national languages. (2) The lack of interest in teaching ethnic languages makes teaching difficult.

4. Model construction

As a result of the above research, it is clear that the main reasons for the endangerment of ethnic languages are the reluctance of young people to learn ethnic languages and the low quality of ethnic language teaching, respectively. Therefore, in order to solve this problem, we targeted the use of IoT technology to build a solution from the ethnic identity perspective to solve the problem of ethnic language transmission and development.

4.1 Introduction to the model

The Internet of Things (IoT) technology aims to realize the interconnection of everything and build an Internet where everything is connected to facilitate communication. And ethnic languages are an important part of the world language system, and ethnic languages are also a bridge for some people to communicate. However, minority languages are in danger of extinction, so our team has built an ethnolinguistic database based on IoT technology. This database is used to store data on the pronunciation and writing of ethnic languages. This database will not only serve as the last guarantee of the ethnic language, but also allow us to find the ethnic language once it is extinct and recreate it through language recognition. By also using IoT technology to build an ethno-linguistic communication garden, we can cultivate a love for ethno-linguistics among the population [16, 17].

4.2 Model content

The model is divided into the following three steps: firstly, we gather the speakers of the national language and gather the knowledge of pronunciation, usage and grammar of the national language. Second, through technologies such as the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence, the collected ethnolinguistic information base is used to generate linguistic texts with ethnolinguistic characteristics, and the ethnolinguistic users are allowed to judge them, and the technology workers modify the built database according to the suggestions made by the ethnolinguistic users. (3) Establishing an ethnolinguistic communication garden. The most central part of the model is to generate the characteristic script language of the ethnic language through the collected database.

4.3 Key steps

Key step 1: Through the ethnolinguistic information provided by the residents, the characteristic key of the ethno language is proposed and stored in the chain table $D_{f}$ , and the information provided by multiple ethnolinguistic speakers is weighted to obtain the final feature vector. The specific formula is shown in Eq. (1).

$\displaystyle D_{f}(i,r)=\frac{\sum\limits_{g\in P_{s}(i,j)}{(TD_{ig}(t)+TD_{% gr}(t))}}{|{P_{s}(i,r)}|}$ (1)

Key step 2: The resulting multiple feature vectors are subjected to weight calculation, and are discussed by comparing them with the adjustment factors for classification, as shown in Eq. (2).

$\displaystyle R_{f}(i,r)=\left\{{\begin{array}[]{ll}1-\frac{\eta}{D_{f}(i,r)};% &\xi<D_{f}(i,r)\\ 1-\frac{D_{f}(i,r)}{\eta};&\xi>D_{f}(i,r)\\ \end{array}}\right.$ (2)

Key step 3: Further adjustments are made to the database data and model based on the opinions of the ethnolinguistic users, the model data are weighted, and the database data are subjected to confidence clustering analysis, as shown in Eq. (3).

$\displaystyle RT_{ij}(t)=\frac{\sum\limits_{h\in R}{TD_{ih}(t)R_{f}(i,h)}}{% \sum\limits_{h\in R}{TD_{hj}(t)}}$ (3)

4.4 Significance of the model

This model aims to make the data system for minority language protection constructed through IoT technology the last line of defense for the protection of ethnic languages, and at the same time enable ethnic languages to be known and understood by more people through IoT technology, cultivate the love and reverence of ethnic minority people for ethnic languages, and enhance the sense of identity and support of other ethnic groups for ethnic languages.

5. Measures

5.1 Increase publicity for minority language protection.

Some minority languages are already in an endangered state. To improve this situation, we must increase the publicity of minority languages and make minority people more aware of the crisis through personalized publicity so that they can spontaneously carry out language publicity activities and enhance their sense of linguistic identity. Currently, some argue that the endangerment of minority languages is the result of their weakness, and that weak languages will inevitably be replaced by strong languages. In order to overcome the negative impact of this view, we must strengthen the propaganda of minority languages so that they are strong and can be comparable to other languages. The propaganda can, on the one hand, increase the awareness of the crisis of the minorities and, on the other hand, strengthen the cultural identity of other ethnic groups and enhance the love for this people. The existence of each language is justified, and each language has its own meaning. For endangered languages, a national endangered language protection bank can be built to arouse the nation’s love for the language through national attention. The linguistic experts will take the lead and the government will be the core support force for the construction of the language bank to protect the endangered languages [18, 19].

5.2 Building laws and regulations related to minority language protection

The transmission of minority languages and cultures is a national-level event. To further promote the protection of minority languages, it is necessary to establish special laws for the protection of ethnic languages. The state is the main force in protecting ethnic languages. However, there is currently a gap in the laws on minority language protection, which has led to difficulties in ethnic language protection. In order to solve the dilemma of minority language development, it is necessary to actively construct foreign minority language protection laws under the leadership of the state, and to target legislation to stimulate minority people’s sense of identity and love for their own language. It is also obligatory to require education of minority languages in each local area to help the minority languages to be better inherited and developed. The government should play a leading role by investing funds in minority language protection and improving minority language heritage education bases to promote the heritage and development of minority languages [20, 21].

5.3 In-depth study of minority language work and construction of an information base

In the process of minority language transmission, it is impossible to fully promote the transmission and development of minority languages if we only rely on the power of minority people and the government, and scientific researchers must also play a part. For some endangered minority languages, we can only build an information base based on big data and Internet of Things technology, and actively carry out teaching work to pass on the ethnic languages. On the one hand, governments at all levels should give financial support to researchers to promote the progress of ethnic language related research. On the other hand, it is important to actively promote teaching and learning, and to promote the development of minority languages through education. By building a specialized minority language discipline system, we can build a knowledge base of the discipline and gradually pass on and promote minority cultures through teaching. And we can increase the publicity of minority cultures and show the charm of minority languages.

5.4 Promote minority language education

Language is a valuable wealth of knowledge passed from mouth to mouth, and schools play an important role in the process of language transmission and development. Schools are the starting point of language transmission and the best place to pass on minority languages. It is important to improve the professionalism of the teachers involved, to attract students’ interest through innovative teaching methods and content, and to cultivate their love for their own language. The following aspects should be achieved in concrete work. First, students from ethnic minorities must learn not only Mandarin but also their own language. Therefore, teachers of language subjects must be proficient in both Mandarin and the ethnic language, and teachers must have an in-depth understanding of the speaking style and pronunciation of the ethnic language in order to be able to comprehensively help students better master the ethnic language. On the other hand, schools should strengthen the training of teachers in ethnic languages to ensure their professionalism. At the same time, teachers should always pay attention to the innovation of teaching style and the development of teaching ability in the teaching process [22]. Education is the key place to transmit minority languages, and by improving the quality of education, we can promote the transmission and protection of minority languages.

6. Conclusion

This paper was conducted on the basis of previous studies; through which it is known that foreign minority languages have the following status quo (1) rapid decline (2) many endangered languages (3) low willingness to learn. In order to further investigate the current situation of minority language protection, the team conducted a survey in the minority cluster A. The results of the survey are as follows: most of the villagers love the national language and must inherit and promote the national language, which is the wealth of a nation, but a small number of residents think that Mandarin should be used to replace the national language. This reflects that most of the residents love the national language, but their young people as the inherited generation lose their love for the national language and are not willing to inherit and promote it. To solve this problem, an Internet of Things (IoT)-based ethnic language data system has been constructed so that the data system for ethnic minority language protection built through IoT technology can become the last line of defense for protecting ethnic languages, while allowing ethnic languages to be known and understood by more people through IoT technology, fostering the love and reverence of ethnic minority people for ethnic languages, and enhancing other ethnic groups’ sense of identity and support for ethnic languages. We propose to protect minority languages. Ultimately, we propose recommendations for the preservation of minority languages. (1) Increase publicity for minority language preservation. (2) Construct laws and regulations related to minority language protection. (3) Conduct in-depth research on minority language work and build an information base. (4) Promote minority language education. The innovation points of the study are mainly the following three points: (1) The article improves the current situation of ethnic language protection through the Internet of Things, which combines technology and culture and reflects the charm of technology. (2) The model constructed in this article has certain theoretical and practical significance (3) The article refines the theory in this field and fills the research gap.

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