ABSTRACT
Drawing on Wolfgang Ernst’s understanding of archival media as ‘active agents’, this essay will discuss the questions that have instigated the design of learning materials for Silbo Gomero, an endangered form of language still used on the small island of La Gomera in the Canarian Archipelago. Looking specifically at the unique perceptual and interconnected materialities afforded by digital media, I will problematize the preservation of endangered languages through the techniques of storage and transmission. If language is an emblematic example of a living and moving archive that is passed on from one generation to the next, we are confronted here with a form of heritage that is constantly disrupted by both temporal and spatial phenomena. In particular, the digital appropriation of Silbo Gomero suggests that a linguistic archive should also open space for ambiguity and change. Memory, tradition, and heritage cannot be saved, only rematerialized, renegotiated, and reinvented – a process that resonates with an understanding of culture as a performative act. 1
