Just because you may not be able to locate Cameroon on a map doesn't mean you shouldn't give the Busuu Song a listen. Busuu is a language spoken by only eight people in a small Cameroonian village. The Language Learning Community trekked out to this community and made a music video with its villagers in an attempt to help save their language.
The Busuu Song and its resulting video are both funny and a tad bit catchy. The song is sung entirely in Busuu and has English subtitles. The song talks about the merits of learning to speak Busuu such as an increased ability in hunting and flirting with women.
I find the Busuu Song interesting as this seems to be the first time ever that a dying language has taken to the Internet to seek preservation and continuation. I wouldn't be surprised if the language eventually did die out, but I also wouldn't be shocked to see other speakers of dying languages try to make their languages go viral. You can check out the video here. Good luck getting this tune out of your head.
What Makes This Trend Stand Out
- Language Revival Videos
- The trend of making viral videos to help save endangered languages offers opportunities for creating language learning tools and monetizing the preservation of culture.
- Localized Marketing Campaigns
- As more people around the world have access to the internet, there is an opportunity for businesses to create marketing campaigns in local and endangered languages to attract new customers.
- Crowdsourced Translation and Localization
- Crowdsourced translation platforms will be vital for the preservation of dying languages, as they offer opportunities for communities to translate their native language into more widely spoken languages for the purposes of education and communication.
Sectors Adopting This
- Language Learning
- Language learning companies can seize opportunities in creating online tools for endangered languages and help preserve language diversity.
- Community Development
- Community development organizations can facilitate the creation of educational materials and language revitalization programs for endangered languages.
- Cultural Preservation
- Opportunities abound for organizations in the cultural preservation space to promote the value of language diversity and provide resources for language survival and revitalization.
