Machine translation
Translation engines trained for each language, able to work with very little data and respectful of its structures and cultural expressions. They translate to and from Spanish.
Revitalizing Languages
Through Co-Created AI
An open, non-profit technology ecosystem dedicated to preserving and empowering low-resource languages.
Authorized and validated by the speaker community.
- 11
- languages in development
- 5
- Latin American countries
- 100%
- open access, non-commercial
What is VOCES?
An interdisciplinary
and intercultural program
VOCES seeks to protect, revitalize and promote Indigenous languages through digital empowerment and the development of technologies that create the conditions to use, learn, teach and pass on a language, making it part of everyday life.
It is not about archiving a language, but about making it present where life happens today: on the phone, at school, in public services and on the internet.
“A language existing in the digital world is not a cultural luxury: it is public infrastructure for its speakers' future.”
Our vision
- 01
Cutting-edge tools
Developing state-of-the-art language technology in the service of Indigenous peoples.
- 02
Language institutions
Strengthening Indigenous peoples' own language institutions so their work can be sustained over time.
- 03
Enabling factors
Laying the technological groundwork that lets peoples carry their language into the digital future.
Protect
Document, transcribe and preserve the living corpus of each language: voice and text.
Revitalize
Tools to learn, teach and pass the language on to those who come next.
Promote
Use it every day: at school, in healthcare, in public services, in the media and online.
The challenge
Every two weeks,
an Indigenous language dies
That is 26 languages a year. Half of the world's languages could disappear this century, and each one takes with it an identity, a worldview and a heritage that cannot be recovered.
556
Indigenous languages in Latin America and the Caribbean
38.4%
are in danger of disappearing
47%
of the languages endangered today were not 15 years ago
66
languages have fewer than 99 speakers today
Source: Latin American Atlas of Endangered Indigenous Languages — IIALI · FILAC · SEGIB (2024) · UN DESA · World Bank (2019).
The digital funnel
For every 20 pages browsed on the web, one is in Spanish. It takes 125,000 to find one in Guarani, one of the Indigenous languages with the most presence online.
No Indigenous language of the Americas reaches the 0.1% threshold at which web content is measured. Artificial intelligence inherits that gap — and widens it.
- 7,613living languages in the world
- ~4,000with a writing system
- ~500with a presence on the internet
- 243available on Google Translate
Fewer than 5% of the world's languages can make the digital leap without deliberate intervention. The same technology that opened the gap can close it.
What we do
Tools that let a language work in the digital world
Our work starts from what speaker communities ask of us. These are the lines of work through which we respond.
Voice: transcription and synthesis
Audio transcription and read-aloud in the language. It is the most important line of work for communities where transmission is oral and much of the corpus lives in the memory of its speakers.
Workshops, training and courses
On-site training with speakers, teachers and community authorities: how to use the tools, how to correct them and how to decide over the community's own data.
Language datasets
Building and curating parallel corpora, lexicons and recordings, with governance in the hands of the community.
Intercultural validation
Every tool is reviewed with speakers and ancestral authorities before it opens: relevance before speed.
In development
Simultaneous translation
Live translation for meetings, ceremonies and public-facing services at institutions.
In development
Education and health apps
Digital readers, school textbooks and apps to learn and teach the language, and for healthcare.
Oral and written archive
Digitizing and recording stories, songs and testimonies in digital archives that are accessible and protected by their own communities.
In development
Integration API
Programmatic access so schools, public services and third parties can build the tools into their own systems.
Translators
The ones you can already use
From community pilots to public tools in real use. Each translator opens only once its speaker community has validated it.
In controlled release
They already work with real users from the community, while the intercultural validation that decides when and how they open is completed.
Controlled access
Mapuzungun
Wallmapu · Chile
Led by the Instituto de la Lengua y Cultura Mapuche Aukiñ Mapu, with communities from several territories taking part.
Controlled access
Bribri
Costa Rica
Developed with ADITIBRI.
Controlled access
Ckunsa
Atacama · Chile
Developed with the Consejo Lingüístico Ckunsa.
Controlled access
Iskonawa
Ucayali · Peru
Developed with Estación Chana.
In the early stage
Processes in early conversation. A language is named here only once its speaker community authorizes it.
Early stage
Coming soon
Mexico
Early stage
Coming soon
Costa Rica
Early stage
Coming soon
Ucayali · Peru
Early stage
Coming soon
Chile and Peru
Early stage
Coming soon
Chile and Bolivia
Early stage
Coming soon
Bolivia
Where we work
11 languages in 5 countries
Each dot is a speaker community that chose to work with us. The work moves at the pace of each territory, not of the project's calendar.
Work in progress Early stages
How we work
The community decides.
We build.
Our hallmark is that the tools are co-created with speaker communities, respecting their protocols and their timelines. No version opens until its speakers have validated it.
VOCES is a non-commercial collaborative alliance, aligned with the International Decade of Indigenous Languages 2022–2032.
Our own language models
Translation, voice and writing trained with and for each language, designed to work even with very little data.
Data governance
The data belongs to the communities: they decide what is collected, how it is used and who has access.
Participatory work
Built together on site with speakers, educators and community authorities, respecting protocols and timelines.
The collaboration flow
Eight stages, gone through once and then repeated in cycles of continuous improvement, always with the community at the center.
- 01
Initial authorization
The community decides whether it wants to work with us, and on what terms.
- 02
Illustrative mock-up
A first concrete version that shows what is possible, before asking for anything.
- 03
Collaboration begins
Material provided by the community, corrections from speakers and translation of selected sentences.
- 04
Incremental improvements
Model training, gathering of additional material and tailored adjustments.
- 05
Intercultural validation
Testing in real settings, with real users and the relevant institutions.
- 06
Controlled release
The community sets the strategy: restricted, public or mixed access.
- 07
Sustainability or handover
The tool stays in place, with local capacity to maintain it.
- 08
New tools
On top of translation, voice and writing, applications are built to revitalize, give access to and promote the language: education, health, media and public services.
A public good
Open access and non-commercial
Non-rival, non-excludable
One community using it takes nothing away from another: the same model serves schools, public services, researchers and creators.
An enabling factor
It is the foundation on which others build new tools that we cannot yet anticipate.
The market won't provide it
There is no commercial return in a language with a few thousand speakers: if public policy doesn't do it, nobody will.
VOCES makes available the enabling factors needed to meet each community's real needs.
Contact
Let's talk
If you represent a speaker community, an institution or a research team and would like to work with us, write to us.
- contactovoces@uc.cl
- Where we are
- Centro Nacional de Inteligencia Artificial (CENIA)
Estudios Aplicados de Antropología UC
Santiago, Chile