Te Taka Keegan, a university lecturer in New Zealand, is betting that Google can help him preserve the Maori language of his ancestors. Mr. Keegan uses a tool called the Google Translator Toolkit to upload Maori translations of English texts to Google. Others can then use those translations in their work, increasing the quantity and quality of Maori translations that are available, and creating incentives for children of Maori descent to learn the language. "With this tool, we can actually uplift our language," Mr. Keegan said. "For us, it is about saving our language from extinction. We are trying to help our culture survive." The Google Translator Toolkit may be good for the culture of the Maori people, an indigenous minority group in New Zealand. It's also good for Google. Data from the toolkit helps Google beef up its machine translation system, which I cover in an article in Tuesday's Times. Google's machine translation system feeds on data, including the data that Mr. Keegan and others feed into the toolkit. If enough people use the service, Google will eventually have enough data to add Maori to the list of languages that Google can translate automatically. Google Translate, the company's translation tool, now speaks 52 languages, more than any of the major machine translation systems in use. In a sign of Google's ambitions, the company recently released the toolkit in 345 languages, from Abkhazian to Zulu. ...
Te Taka Keegan, a university lecturer in New Zealand, is betting that Google can help him preserve the Maori language of his ancestors.
Mr. Keegan uses a tool called the Google Translator Toolkit to upload Maori translations of English texts to Google. Others can then use those translations in their work, increasing the quantity and quality of Maori translations that are available, and creating incentives for children of Maori descent to learn the language.
"With this tool, we can actually uplift our language," Mr. Keegan said. "For us, it is about saving our language from extinction. We are trying to help our culture survive."
The Google Translator Toolkit may be good for the culture of the Maori people, an indigenous minority group in New Zealand. It's also good for Google.
Data from the toolkit helps Google beef up its machine translation system, which I cover in an article in Tuesday's Times.
Google's machine translation system feeds on data, including the data that Mr. Keegan and others feed into the toolkit. If enough people use the service, Google will eventually have enough data to add Maori to the list of languages that Google can translate automatically. Google Translate, the company's translation tool, now speaks 52 languages, more than any of the major machine translation systems in use. In a sign of Google's ambitions, the company recently released the toolkit in 345 languages, from Abkhazian to Zulu. ...
Some scholars estimate that at least half of the world's languages may disappear within this lifetime. Paul Christians and Jeff DeKock decided they needed to do something about that, so they started Open Hand Studios. The organization works to preserve cultural heritage. Both Paul and Jeff studied anthropology in graduate school. And Jeff says he and Paul were frustrated with the ways that anthropologists were engaging with indigenous communities.Below is a slideshow of photos from the different regions Open Hands works in. To read the captions which accompany each photo, click on the captions button on the bottom right-hand corner of the slideshow. ...
