We believe in the power of language to change lives through our programs
The Language Digitization Initiative is solutions-oriented and we focus on actionable deliverables.
The goal of Translation Commons’s Language Digitization Initiative (LDI) is to provide a vast array of resources such as toolkits, pilot studies, guidelines, and training to indigenous communities in order to improve their access to information.
Zero to Digital Guidelines Series
Zero to Digital: A Guide to Bring Your Language Online
Language Data Gathering Guidelines
TC Videos and Slide Presentations
An introduction to font issues for language support by Gerry Leonidas (video)
Text, Keyboard, Font, Essentials for your language on the internet by Craig Cornelius (video)
The Script Encoding Initiative and Unicode by Deborah Anderson (slides)
Accessing And Understanding Contents In Portuguese By Foreigners In Scientific Digital Libraries: Can This Methodology Be Generalized To Any Language And Script? by Claudio Menezes (slides)
Language Documentation: A Brief Overview by Anna Belew (slides)
Machine Translation, Key Issues and Guidelines by Kirti Vashee (video)
Terminology Management for Indigenous Languages by Sue Ellen Wright (video)
Terminology Management for Indigenous Languages by Sue Ellen Wright (slides)
Term Base Model for IYIL by Sue Ellen Wright (slides)
Data Gathering Guidelines by Julie Anderson (video)
Data Gathering Guidelines by Julie Anderson (slides)
Indigenous Interpreters in Mexico by Alexandra Hernandez Leon and Hector Santaella Barrera (video)
Modern NLP changes the requirements for building automatic Translation Systems by Antonis Anastasopoulos (slides)
Modern NLP changes the requirements for building automatic Translation Systems by Antonis Anastasopoulos (video)
Software Internationalization Principles and Strategies by Tex Texin (slides)
Software Internationalization Principles and Strategies by Tex Texin (video)
Adding Languages on Computers and Mobile Devices by Craig Cummings (slides)
Adding Languages on Computers and Mobile Devices by Craig Cummings (video)
Communities
The Samuel Worchester Award by the Cherokee Nation 2021, examples of community and technology collaboration (video)
Digitizing Koits Sunuwar Script by Dev Kumar (slides)
Principal Chief of Cherokee Nation Chuck Hoskin Jr. Address in UNESCO NA consultation (video)
Chakma Digitization by Bivuti (video)
Sora Sompeng by Sony Salma (slides)
Children’s story in Mehri by Janet Watson (slides)
Selim and his shadow in Mehri by Janet Watson (slides)
UN – UNESCO Documents
Free and Prior Informed Consent
UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
UNESCO Policy on Engaging with Indigenous Peoples
UNESCO’s Engagement with Indigenous Peoples
The Sustainable Development Goals Repost 2019
UNESCO’s Internet Universality Indicators
Publishing of the Zero to Digital: A Guide to Bring Your Language Online was an important milestone on our journey to prevent and reverse global language extinction. But there is still a lot of work to be done for ensuring human rights and connectivity for all the native languages. We call for localization and internationalization experts, language translation professionals, language community advocates, linguists, font designers and marketing experts to join our mission in breaking the language and communication barriers!
In Progress
Terminology Guidelines
Data Gathering Guidelines
Machine Translation Guidelines
Beyond Unicode Guidelines
Repository Guidelines
Certification Guidelines
Mentoring Guidelines
Internship Guidelines
Zero to Digital: bringing a language online Pilot with Sunuwar language
Language Technology Workshop Learn more
Mapping the digitization status of all languages
Indigenous Interpreter Training
Indigenous Translator Training
Professor Community of Practice