Language Technology

The language technology team agreed on the following objectives:

· Enable indigenous communities to use internet technology

· Engage speakers and especially young learners to appreciate and honor their culture

· Identify technology for educating

· Encourage speakers to create content and community with digital tools and standards

All in their own language.

Zero to Digital Document

Their first project was a step-by-step document as technical guidelines on how to enable a language to be online. The document Zero to Digital is the brainchild of 4 of the most committed volunteers in the digitization of languages, all experts in their respective fields: Craig Cornelius, Craig Cummings, Deborah Anderson and Lee Collins.

Objectives of the Document

The guidelines document helps communities:

· Evaluate their language’s situation with respect to digital support

· Suggest approaches to develop basic digital language support

· Encourage practical usage of language tools, even without formal language documentation, grammar, and educational standards

· Point indigenous communities to available tools and techniques to build digital capabilities.

· Engage community members in decisions and process

· Connect communities to standards and technology professionals

Zero to Digital Flowcharts

With two main flowcharts to show the basic workflows in digitization, it is very easy to follow and has a more technical section at the end for the technical implementation. By using questions answered with Yes-No, the communities are guided to the next step they need to undertake with the available resources and people. It offers concrete actions for each response, a guide to perform specific tasks, pointers to resources and tools and suggestions for next steps.

Any written language used in digital devices must therefore include:

· a standard encoding system for characters, for example Unicode,

· rendering systems plus fonts for characters used in the language, and

· methods or applications to render the code points to desired media.

Unicode

Unicode standardization covers many of the text processing aspects of a writing system and language. With font and input support, many things will just work. This includes most aspects of basic word processing, spreadsheets, and email.

Common Locale Data Repository (CLDR)

The Common Locale Data Repository (CLDR) provides “key building blocks for software to support the world's languages” by collecting useful information for different locales (language and country). This data can provide the names of languages, countries, months, weekdays, and other information. It also enables locale-aware formatting of date, time, numbers, and other commonly formatted information. Although CLDR data is not required for basic text communication in indigenous languages, this information enhances language functionality. Almost all tools such as email, texting, social media, and so on will work well when fonts and keyboard are present.

This information is used by programmers to create output for online applications in specific context such as localized calendars, spreadsheets, numeric output, menu selections, and other user interface contexts.