title: LLMs and Indigenous Language Revitalization
links:
tags:
  - artificial-intelligence
  - large-language-models
  - language-revitalization
  - project-ai-lang
project-tag: project-ai-lang

LLMs and Indigenous Language Revitalization

Description

One major focus of my research is the use of large language models to support endangered languages. I developed the first translator for Owens Valley Paiute by proposing a new translation paradigm: LLM-assisted rule-based machine translation (LLM-RBMT). We show that this approach performs well even without parallel corpora (a common limitation for low-resource languages). This hybrid approach combines LLMs and lexicons with expert-defined translation rules, enabling functional machine translation where traditional methods fail.

I also mentor students working on RAG-augmented chatbots that can interact with external sources like grammars and ethnographies to answer linguistic questions. Our public tools include a sentence builder, an English to OVP translator, and a digital dictionary to support both linguistic exploration and community use. This work sits at the intersection of AI and linguistic justice: our goal is to build tools that serve Indigenous communities.

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