Coleton Hast: Bridging technology and community to help preserve Taiwan’s endangered languages

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] - Every morning in New Taipei City, Taiwan, Brown University doctoral student Coleton Hast boards the subway, riding into another day of total language immersion.

Ahead lies a grueling schedule of intensive Mandarin Chinese study, one-on-one sessions, conversational practice with local language partners, hours of homework and countless chances to put it all into use.

This summer, Hast is spending eight weeks at Tamkang University in Taiwan as a recipient of the competitive Critical Language Scholarship, a fully funded initiative sponsored by the U.S. Department of State. The program provides rigorous, immersive instruction in languages considered critical to U.S. engagement across the globe.

It also offers the opportunity for Hast to strengthen the linguistic and cultural fluency that underpins his anthropology research at Brown, which focuses on revitalizing endangered languages within Indigenous communities in Taiwan and exploring how emerging technologies support those efforts.

It's a homecoming of sorts for Hast, who earned his master's degree in ethnic relations and cultures from National Dong Hwa University's College of Indigenous Studies in Taiwan.

"I just really fell in love with the place, and being back in Taiwan again is grounding for me," he said. "You can get a bit of tunnel vision when you're just reading and writing about things. But being here reminds me of the stakes - that this is a real place, with real communities facing real challenges. It energizes me and reminds me why I do what I do."

Hast began his path to linguistic anthropology as a high schooler in Indianapolis, where he nurtured competing interests in English and theater.

"I put together that the common link was language in general - I love language, and I love how people use it to express themselves," he said. "So I knew I wanted to go into a scientific study of language, but I also wanted to have a cause behind it."

During his undergraduate studies at Indiana University Bloomington, Hast studied Chinese and developed a scholarly interest in language revitalization and reclamation, supporting communities whose languages have become endangered due to colonialism, assimilation and education policies.

"I combined my own personal interest in language and culture with wanting to do something with it," he said. "What's kept me interested and going for this long is that love of language, and the right and privilege to be able to speak your own."

Partnering with communities to preserve endangered languages

Mandarin is the most widely spoken language in Taiwan, and the one through which Hast builds relationships with research partners. But the island is the ancestral homeland of all Austronesian languages - a vast language family that includes Hawaiian, Samoan and Indigenous languages of the Philippines - making it a uniquely rich setting for studying linguistic diversity.

Hast works primarily with the Amis language, also known as Pangcah, investigating how communities navigate language education and revitalization, particularly through technologies like artificial intelligence and open-source digital tools.