Language Technologies for Indigenous Languages

Workshop -- January 10-12, 2024,
Santiago de Chile, Chile

A group of researchers on minorized languages joined efforts in order to bring together language community members, linguists, and technologists to discuss how to bridge the gap of digital technologies for indigenous languages and create prototypes of novel and practical language revitalization technologies.

There will be a 3 day Workshop, where we will have invited talks, short courses on the subject and boot camp to develop projects and initiatives to foster the the encounter between computational technologies and indigenous languages.

The workshop is non-archival, so no proceedings will be published. We do ask that all authors of accepted papers plan to present their work in the format suggested by the program committee, giving an oral (talk) or poster presentation. If authors have a preference in the presentation format, they may indicate so in the final submission form.

Call for Contributions

We invite submission of any work related to indigenous languages of Latin America. This may involve anything at the intersection of computational linguistics, documentary linguistics, and community-based language revitalization/conservation efforts, as well as language technologies, modeling, data collection, and other data-related issues.

We encourage submissions which:

1. examine the use of specific methods in the analysis of data from indigenous latin american languages, with a focus on endangered languages, or propose new methods for analyzing such data;
2. propose new models for the collection, management, and deployment of data for indigenous language settings;
3. consider what concrete steps are required to facilitate more fruitful interaction between computer scientists, documentary linguists, and language communities;
4. discuss the evolution and workings of partnerships between language communities, documentary linguists and/or computational linguists in the development of language technology for language revitalization efforts.

Submissions from indigenous researchers or with participation of indigenous community members are strongly encouraged.

The organizers can provide financial support (flight and accommodation) for authors of some submissions, based on need and diversity considerations.

Submission / Acceptance Information

The submission requires only a half-page extended abstract (maximum 1 full page).
The submission must be in a simple PDF format and include:
-- Title
-- Author, Affiliation, and Contact Email
-- Extended Abstract
Submissions must be sent to the workshop email (workshop.TIL@gmail.com) no later than November 30, 2023 (end of day). All submissions will be reviewed by the scientific committee and notification of acceptance will be sent out by December 3rd, 2023.

Tentative Program

Day 1:
Presentations of contributed work (oral talks, posters) Invited talk
Day 2:
NLP Lectures with emphasis on indigenous and low-resource languages Breakout groups to talk about technology needs/problems/issues in indigenous languages Form group project
Day 3:
Hackathon-style: CS/engineering students work with speakers/teachers to Group Projects on tools or data Closing (brief presentation from project teams)

Organization

Institutions
Department of Computer Science, FCFM, Universidad de Chile
Subdirección de Pueblos Indígenas, FCFM, Universidad de Chile

Program Committee
Cristian Ahumada, Universidad de Chile, Chile
Antonis Anastasopoulos, George Mason University, USA (Organizer)
Alvaro Calfucoy, Universidad de Chile, Chile
Claudio Gutierrez. Universidad de Chile, Chile (Organizer)
Felipe Hasler, Universidad de Chile, Chile
Elisa Loncón, USACH, Chile
Alexis Palmer, UC Boulder, USA
Doris Sáez, Universidad de Chile
Roberto Zariquiey, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Perú

Sponsors:
North America Chapter Association Computational Linguistics (NAACL),
Millenium Institute Foundations of Data (IMFD),
National Center for Artificial Intelligence (CENIA),
Network Information Center Chile (NIC Chile)

Important Dates & Venue

Contact Information

For further information, please email the organizers at: workshop.TIL@gmail.com