This North Bay college is helping preserve an Indigenous language in Costa Rica

Canadore College in North Bay, Ont., is helping to preserve the language of a small Indigenous community nestled in the heart of the central American nation of Costa Rica. 

Students with the college's First Peoples' Centre will use Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology to produce real-time translations into the Maleku language, supporting efforts to preserve and share the community's linguistic heritage.

The Maleku community has a population of around 650. But the Maleku language, like many Indigenous languages, is rapidly declining as younger generations shift to speaking Spanish, the dominant language in Costa Rica. Many Maleku children grow up learning Spanish as their primary language, with little exposure to their native tongue.

The majority of fluent Maleku speakers are older adults. There are also limited educational resources and language documentation available to help preserve and teach Maleku.

Through this technology, they will have the opportunity to learn and teach their language, Maleku Jaika, to the next generations.

The groundwork for this initiative began nearly two years ago with a small group of Canadore students travelling to Costa Rica. A second group visited in March with financial support from the Global Skills Opportunity Fund, a program supported by Colleges and Institutes Canada. They have another trip planned to continue this project.

Sarah Julian, director of Canadore College's First Peoples' Centre and Indigenous Engagement, said the technology will help future generations and youth who are leaving the community to attend school learn their language.

"It's really important that we continue to foster those relationships, but then also foster those promises that we make. It's not something that's one and done. It's something that's been built over time," said Julian.

Shawn Chorney, the college's vice president of Strategic Infrastructure, Indigenous and Learner Services, agreed. 

"Language is owned by the people who speak it. It's not owned by AI. It's not owned by the internet. It's owned by the Maleku people. Without [their] language being preserved and being able to speak it, that sense of self and identity and that self-determination doesn't exist," said Chorney.

Currently, only five schools in the region teach Maleku Jaika.

"We're paired up with a couple of teachers from Costa Rica who teach the Maleku language and they are guiding the AI language model. We start with introductory phrases, we start with everyday language and then it starts to build on that," explained Chorney, noting that the language model will then be translated into Spanish or English.

"We don't need to change the world — we just need to do our part in improving it. This project and others like it are having such a massive impact in Costa Rica and other places throughout the world and colleges are playing a part in doing that. It's very meaningful because if collectively we all do something, we're going to leave a footprint behind that's better for future generations."