INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
The benefits of machine translation are easy to see and experience for ourselves, but those practical applications are only one part of what
makes the technology valuable
Microsoft and the government of New Zealand are demonstrating the potential of translation tech to help preserve and hopefully breathe new
life into the Māori language.
Te reo Māori, as it is called in full, is of course the language of New Zealand largest indigenous
But as is common elsewhere as well, the tongue has fallen into obscurity as generations of Māori have assimilated into the dominant
culture of their colonizers.
Māori people make up about 15% of the population, and only a quarter of them speak the language, making
for a grand total of 3% that speak te reo Māori
The country is hoping to reverse the trend by pushing Māori language education broadly and taking steps to keep it relevant.
Microsoft
and New Zealand Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Māori, or Māori Language Commission, have been working together for years to make sure
that the company software is inclusive of this vanishing language
The latest event in that partnership is the inclusion of Māori into Microsoft Translator service, meaning it can now be automatically
translated into any of the other 60 supported languages, and vice versa.
That a strong force for inclusion and education, of course, as
automatic translation tools are a great way to engage with content, check work, explore previously untranslated documents, and so
on.
Creating an accurate translation model is difficult for any language, and the key is generally to have a large corpus of documents to
So a necessary part of the development, and certainly something the Commission helped with, was putting together that corpus and doing the
necessary quality checks to make sure translations were correct
With few speakers of the language, this would be a more difficult process than, say, creating a French-German translator.
One of the
speakers who helped, Te Taka Keegan from the University of Waikato, said (from this Microsoft blog post):
The development of this Māori
language tool would not have been possible without many people working towards a common goal over many years
We hope our work doesn&t simply help revitalize and normalize te reo Māori for future generations of New Zealanders, but enables it to
be shared, learned and valued around the world
It very important for me that the technology we use reflects and reinforces our cultural heritage, and language is the heart of
that.
Languages are dying out left and right, and although we can&t prevent that entirely, we can use technology to help make sure that they
are both recorded and capable of being used alongside the dwindling number of active languages.
The Māori translation program is part
of Microsoft AI for Cultural Heritage program.
