Invoking IT to help revitalize Indigenous languages at risk of extinction

“We kind of have our own internal process figured out, but as other communities start to use the software, they’re using it in different ways. They have different programs; they have different goals. They have different needs, or their community culture is different. There’s all kinds of little intricacies that are different for them. And we’re learning from that process as well,” he says.

Baldwin and his team are halfway through the apprenticeship program now. Apprentices appointed by the tribal communities are provided a stipend through the university and are trained on the software. They then embark on a 24-month long apprenticeship where they bring in archival material for their own language. Although still new, the pilot program has shown promising results, and has proved beneficial for both the tribal communities and Miami University’s IT services.

A shift in development strategy

As the software platform grows, new challenges arise. For example, scaling up development and operations to meet the platform’s rising complexity proved difficult due to the turnover of undergraduates the university originally employed to work on the software.

To ensure more consistency, Dirk Tepe, director of application architecture and operations at Miami University, shifted to working with graduate students completing their master’s programs for computer science, computer engineering, or software development. Two or more developers, funded by grants, work with the program for two or more years while finishing their degrees. The shift to working with graduate students has allowed for greater continuity, enabling apprentices and developers to work together throughout their commitments.

The relationship between the Miami Tribe and Miami University has empowered developers to “consistently build and deploy their applications with very little assistance from Miami’s IT services team,” says Tepe. They can work at their own pace, managing product releases as they see fit, while still maintaining that operational support as needed.

“From a technology perspective, success was defined in the simple terms of being able to expand the ILDA software suite to other participating tribes while continuing to develop the features and capabilities of the application. The partnership between the center’s development team and Miami’s IT services enabled this by leveraging existing infrastructure and processes. Our measure of success is that nearly two dozen instances of ILDA have been created to date,” says Tepe.

Moving forward

When asked about the future of the program, Dr. Troy is hopeful that technologies such as machine learning and AI can be integrated to help automate processes for linguists. He also has an eye on more powerful search tools, database engines, performance improvements, and stronger search functionality. There’s already an iOS and Android dictionary app, giving users easy access to ILDA on mobile devices, but he notes there’s always room for advancement.

Technology has not been the sole driver of ILDA’s success; passion has played a large role as well. The goal isn’t about making money, but about thoughtfully assisting underrepresented and oppressed communities, helping them take back meaningful aspects of their culture that they have historically been forced to abandon.

“The most meaningful experience for me is feeling the impact this work has on the lives of members of tribal communities involved with language and culture revitalization. In the technology field, we often want to work on the ‘next big thing,’ or use a cool new technology. This program is not about those things,” says Tepe. “This program makes a real difference in people’s lives. Hearing someone describe how it feels to greet you in their native language, a language that was previously sleeping [a documented language without living speakers], and how that led to a reawakening of an entire culture is deeply moving.”

For the Miami Tribe and other tribal communities involved in ILDA, language and culture revitalization is about more than saving a language from extinction. It’s about taking back their identities, defining their culture in modern times, and establishing a clear presence in society.

“We’re living people with a past, not a people of the past. And I think that we continually try to push that so that the rest of America starts to see us and understand us as contemporary peoples,” Baldwin says. “Our language and culture are important. We’re not our ancestors. We’re not going to be our ancestors. However, trying to preserve those things that are healthy for us or good for us allows us to maintain ourselves as communities — and language and culture is central to that identity piece.”