Grass huts and Androids: preserving language and culture in New Guinea

An ambitious experiment involving the use of mobile phones in a remote corner of Papua New Guinea, is about to be launched by researchers from the University of Melbourne. The project, led by Associate Professor Steven Bird of the Department of Computing and Information Systems, will travel to Papua New Guinea to investigate the preservation of indigenous languages.

Papua New Guinea has over 800 distinct languages, far more than any other country. This linguistic and cultural treasure is at risk of being lost forever, as the languages fall out of use. "Now is the time to record and translate the stories and songs, so they can be heard and understood by future generations. The best way to do this on a large scale is to use mobile phones. They are already in widespread use, even in villages without electricity, where they are recharged using car batteries." says Professor Bird.

The project has an impressive list of sponsors, including the Australian Research Council, the US National Science Foundation, the Swiss National Science Foundation, and the Firebird Foundation for Anthropological Research. "It’s all about scalability", says Bird. "The sponsors saw that we had a viable plan for using inexpensive technology and voluntary labour to secure a vast amount of linguistic heritage in digital form," he says. Within PNG, the project is receiving logistical support from the University of Goroka and the Summer Institute of Linguistics.

Doctoral student, Florian Hanke, has developed software for Android phones for recording audio and sharing it over a local network. Others can listen to recordings, rate them and give a spoken commentary or translation into English. The software is designed for use by people without formal education or even literacy.

"These people have extensive knowledge of their environment and a rich oral literature, none of which is recorded. We are introducing Web-2.0-style social networking in a place with no previous with the Web. However, we are not trying to deliver the Internet to the village. Instead, we are creating digital content in small languages, some with only a few hundred speakers. The data will end up in the Internet Archive, based in San Francisco," said Associate Professor Bird.

The project leverages the traditional knowledge of the elders with the skills of a younger generation who have western-style education and carry mobile phones. An elder will record a story on one phone. Someone else using another phone might rate it, or supply another version of the story. This is similar to rating an item on-line or on a website. Those listening to stories add their vote of approval and in some cases offer additional details.

A bilingual person will listen to a highly-rated story on another phone and provide a translation into English. Someone else might listen to the translation on another phone and supply a more accurate translation. Another person might listen to the English and transcribe it. Over time, researchers will build up a large database of translated texts in many languages. This will not just be useful for people wanting to learn the language of their ancestors, but will also be used for the development of automatic translation software.

The team has chosen the Android platform because it is free, open source, and available on inexpensive phones in Papua New Guinea. As Associate Professor Bird comments, it is a modern-day spoken Rosetta Stone, drawing on the "wisdom of the crowd."

The project builds on an earlier project, where Bird trained 100 students in three PNG universities to record their ancestral languages, using 100 voice recorders. Speaking about this project, Avei-Hosea, Dean of Humanities at the University of Goroka, said: "PNG is one of the few countries in the world that still practices its oral cultures and speaks its languages, and is richly blessed with untapped traditional knowledge. More than 80% of PNG’s knowledge systems have not been researched, recorded and archived. Most of the Papua New Guineans who hold such knowledge are old people and if we do not act fast in preserving such knowledge, it is certain that we will lose what is truly ours forever. Our languages are the key to all these indigenous systems. Such a project, for recording, archiving, and research using the latest in technology is important and timely. It is our responsibility, both as academics and students, to work together to preserve and promote what is truly ours and be proud of such."

Associate Professor Bird is travelling to PNG on Saturday 11 February and visiting again for further investigations in May-June 2012.