The Polar Retrospective looks at events from the past week that are related to the Arctic and Antarctic and focuses on one or more aspects. This time, the focus is on the original languages of the Arctic, long suppressed and now receiving a social uplift thanks to artificial intelligence.
Kalaallit Nunaannut tikilluaqqusaagut – Anyone who understands these three words is either from Greenland, has mastered the Greenlandic language or has used a technical aid (like the author of this article). Because as of last week, it is now possible to have Kalaallisut (the Greenlandic language) translated by Google Translate into other languages, at least in text form, or to translate texts from your own language into Kalaallisut.
But not only Kalaallisut became part of the translation software. Samí, the language of the indigenous Arctic people of Scandinavia, has also been added to the translator along with a further 108 languages, including Faroese as another language from the sub-Arctic region. “Google Translate breaks down language barriers to help people connect and better understand the world around them,” says Isaac Caswell, Senior Software Engineer at Google Translate. “We’re rolling out 110 new languages to Google Translate, our largest expansion ever.”
Training Arctic languages with the help of AI
Technically speaking, Google Translate was trained using an artificial intelligence, the “PaLM 2 large Language model”. “PaLM 2 was a key piece to the puzzle helping Translate more efficiently learn languages that are closely related to each other,” Caswell explains how the AI works in a press release. However, despite the technological progress, the AI developers cannot do without human support and also rely on collaboration with linguists and native speakers. This will also be an essential part of further development in the future in order to improve the model.
But Google Translate is not the first translation app to make Arctic languages accessible to the general public. Microsoft had already added Inuktitut, one of the most important dialects of the Inuktut languages in Canada, to its translator in 2021 and even included a romanized form of the syllabary of the languages in 2022. And the now frequently used AIs such as ChatGPT can also translate at least simpler phrases or words into Kalaallisut, for example. And just 4 months ago, there was no sign of Kalaallisut in Google Translate, even though it is the official language of Greenland. So why the change now?
Promoting linguistic diversity
Google itself states that the new features were introduced as part of the company’s “1,000 Languages Initiative”. This initiative aims to develop and publish AI-based models to support the 1,000 most widely used languages. The aim is also to contribute to the preservation of global linguistic diversity, a goal that UNESCO called for some time ago. To this end, languages that are only spoken by a few thousand people or are even on the verge of extinction are to be made more widely known to the public using AI and an implementation in Google Translate.
And again, here, too, Google is not in a pioneering role. Companies such as Microsoft and Meta have previously announced and implemented similar goals and reasons for adding Arctic languages (and others) to their products and services. Smaller companies are also jumping on the bandwagon and using artificial intelligence to develop ways for companies, institutions and organizations to use Kalaallisut, Samí, the various Inuktut dialects and other languages of the Arctic ethnic groups and make their information accessible to the relevant populations.
However, the reasons for the new features only play a subordinate role. The implementation is much more important. It brings these languages, which have been suppressed by governments and church institutions for decades, back into people’s awareness and makes it possible to learn or at least use them more widely again. After all, language is much more than the comprehensible transmission of information. It is an expression of the identity and cohesion of a group, an expression of its ideas and attitudes, its history and culture. It provides a glimpse into the past, defines the present and secures the future. Even if it takes a soulless AI to achieve this, it will at least provide the first major step towards the continued existence of the cultures of the Arctic peoples and many others around the world in a time of great change and challenge.
Dr. Michael Wenger, Polar Journal AG
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