The Indigenous Languages Technology project at NRC Canada: An empowerment-oriented approach to developing language software
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Roland Kuhn, Fineen Davis, Alain Désilets, Eric Joanis, Anna Kazantseva, Rebecca Knowles, Patrick Littell, Delaney Lothian, Aidan Pine, Caroline Running Wolf, Eddie Santos, Darlene Stewart, Gilles Boulianne, Vishwa Gupta, Brian Maracle Owennatékha, Akwiratékha’ Martin, Christopher Cox, Marie-Odile Junker, Olivia Sammons, Delasie Torkornoo, Nathan Thanyehténhas Brinklow, Sara Child, Benoît Farley, David Huggins-Daines, Daisy Rosenblum, Heather Souter. Proceedings of the 28th International Conference on Computational Linguistics. 2020.
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By 2018, researchers had compiled millions of parallel sentences from such sources.
“By 2018, researchers had compiled millions of parallel sentences from such sources (Kuhn et al. 2020).”
From Data colonialism and indigenous languages in AI: a critical review of existing initiatives and their struggles with data sovereignty (2026) · cites this paper as Kuhn et al. 2020
Section 3.2 reports that researchers compiled 1.3 million aligned Inuktut–English sentence pairs from Nunavut legislative proceedings. It does not establish that the corpus had been compiled by 2018, and 1.3 million does not substantiate the claim’s plural “millions.” (LLM, conf=0.86)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredBy respecting the First Nations principles of OCAP, which assert that Indigenous peoples retain these rights over data about them, and partnering with Inuit organizations, the Canadian MT efforts sought to ensure that the tools met community needs and that the data remained accessible to those communities.
“By respecting the First Nations principles of OCAP, which assert that Indigenous peoples retain these rights over data about them, and partnering with Inuit organizations, the Canadian MT efforts sought to ensure that the tools (like an Inuktitut translator or a verb conjugator for Mohawk) met community needs and that the data remained accessible to those communities.”
From Data colonialism and indigenous languages in AI: a critical review of existing initiatives and their struggles with data sovereignty (2026) · cites this paper as Kuhn et al. 2020
Split into 2 atoms — 1 confirmed, 1 partially supported, 0 disputed, 0 misattributed, 0 unverifiable. Expand the claim to see per-atom verdicts.
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredInuktitut, spoken by roughly 40,000 Inuit in Canada (primarily in Nunavut and Nunavik), is noteworthy for having one of the largest Indigenous language corpora in the world.
“Inuktitut, spoken by roughly 40,000 Inuit in Canada (primarily in Nunavut and Nunavik), is noteworthy for having one of the largest Indigenous language corpora in the world.”
From Data colonialism and indigenous languages in AI: a critical review of existing initiatives and their struggles with data sovereignty (2026) · cites this paper as Kuhn et al. 2020
Section 2, Sociolinguistic Background, gives 36,185 Inuktitut speakers in the 2016 Canadian census, consistent with roughly 40,000. Section 3.2 describes a 1.3-million-sentence-pair Inuktut–English corpus and calls it the largest released parallel corpus for an Indigenous language of the Americas or a polysynthetic language. The paper does not establish its rank among all Indigenous language corpora worldwide or say that speakers are primarily in Nunavut and Nunavik; it also uses Inuktut for the Nunavut language varieties represented by the corpus. (LLM, conf=0.87)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredNRC made it a policy that it would not claim ownership of Indigenous language data collected or used in the project, acknowledging the long, painful history of extractive research where communities often lost access to their own linguistic data.
“Crucially, NRC made it a policy that it would not claim ownership of Indigenous language data collected or used in the project, acknowledging the”
From Data colonialism and indigenous languages in AI: a critical review of existing initiatives and their struggles with data sovereignty (2026) · cites this paper as Kuhn et al. 2020
Split into 2 atoms — 1 confirmed, 1 partially supported, 0 disputed, 0 misattributed, 0 unverifiable. Expand the claim to see per-atom verdicts.
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThe National Research Council Canada (NRC) spearheaded an Indigenous Languages Technology project (2017-2020) that included an Inuktitut MT system, among other tools.
“The National Research Council Canada (NRC) spearheaded an Indigenous Languages Technology project (2017-2020) that included an Inuktitut MT system, among other tools.”
From Data colonialism and indigenous languages in AI: a critical review of existing initiatives and their struggles with data sovereignty (2026) · cites this paper as Kuhn et al. 2020
The Introduction identifies an NRC Indigenous Languages Technology project funded for a three-year first phase beginning in 2017. The Abstract reports experiments with MT systems trained on an Inuktut–English corpus, alongside other software subprojects. It does not establish that the project included a completed Inuktitut MT tool, rather than experimental systems for Inuktut. (LLM, conf=0.83)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
Since 1999, laws and legislative proceedings must be published in Inuktitut, leading to a substantial bilingual corpus of Inuktitut-English parliamentary records (the Nunavut Hansard).
“Since 1999, laws and legislative proceedings must be published in Inuktitut, leading to a substantial bilingual corpus of Inuktitut-English parliamentary records (the Nunavut Hansard).”
From Data colonialism and indigenous languages in AI: a critical review of existing initiatives and their struggles with data sovereignty (2026) · cites this paper as Kuhn et al. 2020
Section 3.2 reports a substantial Inuktut-English Nunavut Hansard corpus drawn from Legislative Assembly proceedings dating from April 1999. It does not say that laws or proceedings must be published in Inuktitut, or that a legal requirement led to the corpus. The paper uses “Inuktut” for the language varieties represented, rather than specifying Inuktitut alone. (LLM, conf=0.88)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThe NRC project was guided by an Indigenous advisory council and explicitly aimed to collaborate with communities, putting equal emphasis on the agenda of the linguist and of the community.
“It was guided by an Indigenous advisory council and explicitly aimed to collaborate with communities, putting”
From Data colonialism and indigenous languages in AI: a critical review of existing initiatives and their struggles with data sovereignty (2026) · cites this paper as Kuhn et al. 2020
The methodologies in the IBM research on Guaraní or the NRC's algorithms for polysynthetic languages can be transferred.
“Likewise, the methodologies in the IBM research on Guaraní or the NRC's algorithms for polysynthetic languages can be transferred.”
From Data colonialism and indigenous languages in AI: a critical review of existing initiatives and their struggles with data sovereignty (2026) · cites this paper as Kuhn et al. 2020
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Cited by
Sorted by citations
Kwok, J. C. Y. (2026) · AI & SOCIETY · doi:10.1007/s00146-026-03091-w · Cited by 4 · see citing works
- Authors
- Kuhn, R., Davis, F., Désilets, A., Joanis, E., Kazantseva, A., Knowles, R., Littell, P., Lothian, D., Pine, A., Running Wolf, C., Santos, E., Stewart, D., Boulianne, G., Gupta, V., Maracle Owennatékha, B., Martin, A., Cox, C., Junker, M.-O., Sammons, O., Torkornoo, D., Thanyehténhas Brinklow, N., Child, S., Farley, B., Huggins-Daines, D., Rosenblum, D., & Souter, H.
- Affiliations
- National Research Council Canada (CA)
- Computer Research Institute of Montréal (CA)
- Queen's University (CA)
- Nuance Communications (United States) (US)
- University of British Columbia (CA)
- ORCID
- Venue
- Proceedings of the 28th International Conference on Computational Linguistics
- Published
- 2020
- Pages
- 5866-5878
- ISSN
- 1525-2477 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W3117286078
- Cited by
- 22
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 1 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 6 · 2021: 1 · 2020: 1
- FWCI
- 1.43
- Type
- conference paper
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by
- Locations
- International Conference on Computational Linguistics (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- NPARC (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Natural Language Processing Techniques
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Speech and dialogue systems
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Language and Linguistics › Linguistics and Language Studies
- Keywords
- indigenous languages, language technology, empowerment, Indigenous language revitalization
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