Language Death in the Digital Age: Can AI Save Endangered Tongues?

The swift decline of linguistic diversity poses a serious threat to our global cultural heritage, with almost 3,000 out of the 7,000 languages spoken around the world now at risk. Unfortunately, efforts to save these languages have often fallen short, as traditional linguistic tools just haven't cut it. This leaves the upcoming generation without any real hope of connecting with the visions shared by the indigenous elders they’ve looked up to. Faced with such overwhelming challenges, it’s no surprise that many young people choose to turn away from their heritage, feeling like the obstacles are just too great to overcome. But hope, like sunlight, in the form of artificial intelligence glimmers on the horizon for these would-be next generations. More computer power and better algorithms promise to finally deliver on the computational linguistics dream. That these (computational linguistics) tools so obviously and dangerously failed to deliver on in the past with a host of languages (some very 'well-documented' for those dangerous past tools in violation of human rights) need to be remembered as we move forward.