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Facebook recently released a trove of AI models that can do TTS and other stuff in 1000s of languages. This gave me a lot of hope that languages can start to be

• demetrius 3y ago
  I don't believe in technical solutions for such things. This is, first and foremost, a societal problem: low prestige of a language, discrimination of its speakers, economic hardships that force people to leave their communities, lingering effects of colonisation in language politics and so on. While technology is certainly useful, it cannot fix the root of the problems.
  • piloto_ciego 3y ago
    I mean; You’re not wrong that tech can’t solve this problem alone…but your lack of faith in using these tools stands against preservation. I worked in many communities. For 14 years I served several communities where the elders were the only ones who speak the language; in many cases, the languages are practically on life support. About the only way we can preserve many of these is technical solutions to preserve what remains and wait for the political will to incubate the language. That and learn. I’m honored that I made friends with some of the locals in many of these towns, and even more honored that they taught me some of their history and language. It can’t just be indigenous people learning the language too - those of us who speak the dominant language and are members of the dominant culture need to learn some too.