Speaker Bios and Presentation Descriptions
Welcome Address
Ms Jeannette Stewart, Founder Translation Commons, Nest i18n Program Manager
Jeannette Stewart is a strategic leader and has worked with mainstream brands helping them achieve global growth, business revitalization and transformation. Currently she is leading international launches for Nest cameras at Google. She founded Translation Commons, an online volunteer-based public charity aiming to offer and share tools and resources and to facilitate community initiatives. The Language Digitization Initiative creates resources specifically for Indigenous communities to enable their languages online. She is the former CEO of CommuniCare, a life-science translation company with offices in London, Paris, Athens, Budapest and Los Angeles. Jeannette has been involved in high-profile projects such as the Genome Project and prototyping the online Unified Submission Process for the European Medicine Agency. Jeannette has founded, served on the board of directors, moderated, and volunteered in various educational and health charities.
Mr Dev Kumar, Chairperson, Indigenous Television (Nepal)
Mr Dev Kumar Sunuwar is a chairperson of Indigenous Television, Nepal’s, indeed Asia’s, first and only multi-lingual Indigenous Community Television, which was one of the official media partners of the International Year of Indigenous Languages in 2019. He has written extensively on international human rights and issues concerning indigenous peoples in various media and journals. For a decade, he was also extensively engaged with UN Human Rights mechanisms and systems for bringing their attention to the concerns of indigenous peoples.
Blessing and presentation of the Sunuwar digitization efforts
Development of different technologies for the preservation and promotion of Indigenous languages.
His presentation will focus on the use of different social media, modern media, and technologies for the preservation and promotion of Indigenous languages, particularly the Sunuwar languages of Nepal.
Ms Dorothy Gordon, Chair, UNESCO Information for All Programme (Ghana)
Ms Dorothy Gordon is a global leader in the field of technology and development with a focus on digital transformation. As a feminist she works to bring about greater understanding, engagement, and action regarding the impact of technology on society. She is Chair of the Inter-Governmental Council of the UNESCO Information For All Programme and a Board member of the UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in Education. She works in the field of digital transformation with a focus on purpose-driven innovation and improved policy design and outcomes. Leveraging her extensive managerial experience with the United Nations and the public sector in Africa and Asia, she serves as an advisor and consultant to diverse stakeholders including civil society organizations and the private sector. This includes her work with the Global Partnership for Artificial Intelligence, the World Summit Awards, Linux Professional Institute, and Chatham House. Her current interests include gender and technology, digital and information literacy in indigenous languages, technology in education, and language technologies and artificial intelligence. She is a regular speaker on the impact of technology on society, an advocate of the Open Movement, Creative Commons, and UNESCO’s ROAM Principles.
Dr Irmgarda Kasinskaite-Buddeberg, Advisor for Communication and Information, UNESCO
Dr Irmgarda Kasinskaite-Buddeberg is Advisor for Communication and Information at UNESCO. She has more than twenty years of professional experience in international relations, minority rights, information and communication, social inclusion, and sustainable development. Her work is focused on the implementation of normative instruments, formulation of inclusive policies, technical advice, intellectual leadership, resource mobilization and coordination of international cooperation mechanisms in the fields of access to information and knowledge, linguistic diversity and multilingualism, media and information literacy, and information accessibility. Before joining UNESCO in 2002, she served the Government of Lithuania providing expertise on Information Society in public policies, public administration and local authorities. She also lectured at the International Center of Knowledge Management of Vilnius University, Lithuania.
Theme 1 – Preserving Indigenous Languages through Translation
Dr. Siva Prasad Rambhatla, Honorary Professor in the Center for Digital Learning, Training and Resources, University of Hyderabad (India)
Dr. Siva Prasad Rambhatla is a retired professor of Anthropology at the University of Hyderabad, and currently an Honorary Professor in the Center for Digital Learning, Training and Resources (CDLTR) there. He has both teaching and research experience of more than 40 years, during which he guided research students in diverse areas. He is actively associated with UNESCO-IFAP programmes. He is a member of the Information Ethics Working Group (IEWG) of UNESCO-Information for All Programme (IFAP). His current areas of interest are AI ethics, different aspects of marginal and indigenous communities, including indigenous knowledge systems, languages, education, and conflict management.
Dr. Niladri Sekhar Dash, Professor and Head, Indian Statistical Institute (India)
Dr. Niladri Sekhar Dash works in the areas of corpus linguistics, language technology, language documentation and digitization, and digital lexicography.
Application of Traditional and Digital Methods in Preservation of Indigenous Languages Through
Translation and language preservation
Dr Parameswari Krishnamurthy, Assistant Professor, University of Hyderabad (India)
Parameswari Krishnamurthy is an Assistant Professor at the Centre for Applied Linguistics and Translation Studies, University of Hyderabad. She has completed her Ph.D. research at the University of Hyderabad entitled “Development of Telugu-Tamil Machine Translation: With Special Reference to Divergence”. Her research area of interest includes Computational Linguistics and Machine Translation, Morphological Analysis and Generation; and Divergence Studies. She has presented more than 40 research papers in various conferences and seminars and published around 20 research papers including conference proceedings and journals
Connecting Language and Technology: A case study with building machine translation systems
It is often said that human languages are deceptively complex systems. Problems such as partial information encoding, lexical differences, ambiguity, syntactic complexity and much more linguistic reasons do contribute to the complexity in understanding natural languages. The development of technology for languages requires adequate resources such as corpus, linguistically enriched data, computational grammars, etc. While involving languages in technology developments, we encounter numerous challenges that require a slightly different treatment of language analysis than normally we do. In this talk, I would like to discuss the requirement of resources for Indigenous language technology and the challenges involved in building language technology tools and applications with special reference to machine translation by taking examples from some Indian languages I am familiar with.
Dr Avni Khatri, Panjab University, Department of Anthropology
Dr. Avanee Khatri, who is currently working as Guest Faculty in the Department of Anthropology, Panjab University, Chandigarh, says: I completed my ICSSR post-doctoral research in February, 2022 and Masters and Ph.D. in Anthropology from Panjab University, Chandigarh. Over the years I have done in-depth anthropological research in domains of medical anthropology, applied/developmental anthropology. My Ph.D. topic was on Anthropological discourse on information technology in rural areas of India which included documenting how ICTs are constructed rural areas with special focus on ICT education for rural children and social realities therein. My post-doctoral research was on AYUSH in urban area (Chandigarh) with the aim to holistically incorporate medical anthropology perspective in critically analyzing the state of AYUSH systems and policies from assimilation to integration. Worked as a research associate in SIA project funded by Indian Railways with 14 published research papers, 1 paper in edited book, authored 1 book and organized a national workshop.
Dr Saumya Sharma, Freelance Researcher with Canvas (India)
Saumya has a total of 17 years of experience, the last 12.5 years in qualitative research. Currently working as freelance researcher for Canvas8. She has worked across diverse set of categories – education, e-commerce, media, social media, journalism, grassroots. Saumya is an expert ethnographer and specialises in traditional, visual and mobile ethnography. In 2021 she was awarded the ‘Leading Innovator of Visual Ethnographic Research’ at the APAC Business Awards. She is also a guest lecturer and mentor for ethnography and qualitative research, for individuals and groups based in India and abroad
Anthropological lens from going local to global through indigenous knowledge systems
Language and culture are what makes human species supreme in the course of evolution. If
language is the primary tool that human beings use for communication then culture is the
essence of it. Our cultural lens is the unique perspective that each of us views the world
through and this is shaped by our language, culture and personal experiences; basic unit of
anthropology. The evolution of language is a direct result of cultural influence which explains the vast diversity present in humankind. This diversity has given rise to an unequal world with barriers with connotations like, “primitive”, local, indigenous which are not mere
connotations but symbolic reflection of the disparities and discriminatory stance present in
humankind. One of the biggest challenges for an inclusive and equal society is the gap
between the formal literacy and denial of immense wisdom and knowledge that
local/indigenous communities possess. Over time, indigenous peoples around the world
have preserved distinctive understandings, rooted in cultural experience, that guide relations
among human, non-human and other-than human beings in specific ecosystems. Indigenous knowledge that pre-dates colonialism was once regarded as primitive and unsophisticated; this cultural bias historically obscured both the structure and practice of this knowledge. The present paper contests the need for a holistic approach to decode the treasures of indigenous knowledge systems considering the role of government and policy making; use of technology & digital tools and media through the anthropological lens of cultural relativism.
A lot of indigenous languages don’t have a written script, which makes translation a challenge and therefore imperative to include a native of the language to translate in real time.
Language is the only tool for expressing identity and culture as well as one of the greatest emblems of human diversity. The present paper puts forward an Anthropological discourse on understanding indigenous knowledge systems and applications in translating their systems.
Dr. Udaya Narayana Singh, Professor, Amity University Haryana, Gurgaon (India), Chair-Professor in Linguistics, Culture Studies and Translation, Singh is a Chair-Professor and Dean (Faculty of Arts), Amity University Haryana. He was the Director of CIIL, Mysore, and Pro-Vice-Chancellor of Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan. Singh had set up the National Translation Mission and taught at the Universities of Hyderabad, Delhi, South Gujarat, and MSU-Baroda. With seven collections of poems in Maithili and Bangla, six books of essays, and twelve plays, he translated many books and published 250 research papers and created 545 documentaries on the language, literature, and culture of Bangla, Tamil, Kannada, and Marathi. A poet-invitee at the Frankfurt Book Fair (2006), London Book Fair (2009), and Leader of Cultural Delegation of Writers to China (2007), Singh visited and lectured in Australia, Andorra, Bangladesh, Belgium, Caribbean Islands, France, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Nepal, Pakistan, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, UK, and the USA, and received several grants. He received many honors, including the coveted Sahitya Akademi Award 2017 for poetry.
Dr Singh’s latest book-length publications include The Other India: View from Below (Jointly with Rajarshi Singh) (Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi 2022), Translation as Growth: Towards a theory of Language Development (2010; Longman-Pearson), and Cultures on the Margin: Guidelines for Fieldwork on Endangered Languages. (2018 with Rajib Chakraborty, Bidisha Bhattacharjee & Arimardan Kumar Tripathy) Centre for Endangered Languages, Visva-Bharati.
Curse of Dialects and Predicament of the Indigenous
We begin with a discussion on the pain of the indigenous communities in not being able to write. Only when we know what the Written World can achieve, which one cannot do otherwise – do we understand how painful it could be. One realizes that not having one’s feelings, commands or wishes expressed graphically has no “value” in a material world where only the written word is trusted. Only literate communication is weighed. A millennium of ‘Oralcy’ could perhaps prompt one to discover ways and means of somehow keeping a record of the Spoken Words. But the easiest option was to resort to ‘Writing’ – the most common recording device. In the intervening period, our oral texts remained where they were. They were sung, recited from memory and performed. But as time went by, writing has thus emerged as a technology that replicates – albeit inaccurately, what is being said, or what could have been said – something that remained submerged under the millions of thought particles in our minds.
The oral world of the indigene suffered from several curses which we called the Curse of Dialects:
The First Curse: Accident, or Creativity? There are no historical records to tell us if ‘Writing’ was a chance discovery of human beings, or an answer to Man’s creative urge – just as we do not know but can only make a guess as to when it all began with paintings and scribbling on walls. My conjecture is that this was Man’s conscious attempt to get rid of the first curse of dialects. I would call it the Curse of ‘Rapid fading’ nature of human speech.
The Second Curse: Foregrounding the Logos: Writing came also because of Man’s attempt to rid himself from the second curse of ‘Groundedness’. Communicating an oral text was grounded – bound by both vertical and horizontal dimensions. With being able to write one’s speech, Man has now learned to communicate across time and space – both of which had imposed a kind of constraint on us. In a way, as a logocentric animal – this was Man’s discovery of being able to foreground the Logos.
The Third Curse: The Curse of Iconicity : The third curse of the Unwritten world is to remain tied to another text that has precedence, i.e. To be only “iconic” – not the real thing. It is also the curse of being “derivative” – or translative. No wonder we use expressions such as ‘transcript’ or verbs like ‘transliterate’. ‘Trans-‘ as we know is a word-forming element that means “across, beyond, through, on the other side of, to go beyond,” derived from Latin, and perhaps originally present participle of a verb *trare-, meaning “to cross”. As iconic expressions, writings have the burden of both hiding and expressing meanings. She opens herself up to numerous interpretations – just as painted images do.
Speech Communities that had discovered ‘Writing’ for themselves are the ones that had always attracted the attention of historians, merely because they present records and evidence, and the Spoken World has not been cared for by the majority groups. Those who could not make this transition were dubbed as ‘primitive’ vernaculars. Major languages had also acted as “killer languages” replacing the variants and deviants, and drawing members of smaller speech communities into their fold. The result is a disjoint between what is spoken at home and what is written in formal domains around. The paper addresses some of these issues and discusses what the predicament of the Indigene would be, unless we use the Tools and Powers of Translation to develop their languages and sustain their culture.
Mr Hero Patrianto, Linguist, Language Office of East Java, Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology (Indonesia)
I am a Javanese who works as a linguist and translator at the Language Office of East Java.
Translation and Indigenous Language Preservation in Indonesia
Indonesia is the second country with the most indigenous languages in the world. Considering the vitality of indigenous languages, it is critical to continuously search for the most effective way of language preservation. Translation into indigenous languages is one of the potential solutions. In addition, the translations should be aimed at younger generations, through childhood education. In Indonesia, efforts to translate children’s literature into indigenous languages have been initiated. Hopefully, this project can be developed and attract more translators to translating texts into their indigenous languages.
Theme 2 – Language Policy Frameworks
Dr. Jandhyala Prabhakar Rao, Professor of Linguistics, University of Hyderabad, India Member (India), UNESCO-IFAP Bureau Convener, Consortium on Global AI Ethics Network for Social Good (GAIEN4SG)
Awarded Honorius Causa from Krasnoder State University, Russia and also Honorary Professor Medal from Kazan State University, Russia. Research areas of interest include Linguistics, Translation Studies, Foreign Language teaching, Digital Learning and Higher Education in India with special focus on Internationalization of Higher Education. Have more than 60 International and National Publications and edited ten books (eight International and two National). Member of many International and National Committees and Editorial Boards of academic journals.
Ms Aluki Kotierk, President, Nunavut Tunngavik Inc – Co-chair of Global Task Force for IDIL (Canada)
Ms Agnes Bardon, Editor in Chief of the UNESCO Courier, UNESCO
A journalist by training, I’ve been working as a communication officer for the UN mission in Haïti, then for the UNESCO press office for 12 years and am now the Editor-in-Chief of The UNESCO Courier.
From one world to another: special of The UNESCO Courier on translation
UNESCO’s flagship publication since 1948, The UNESCO Courier is a multilingual review since its very beginning. In the late 1980’s, it was translated into 38 languages. Of of its last issue is devoted to translation at large, highlighting many dimensions of this quite unknown topic -among which the challenging issue of indigenous languages.
Ms Zeynep Varoglu, Programme Specialist, Communication and Information Sector, UNESCO
Mr Hector Santaella Barrera, Association of Professionalism Indigenous Interpreters (Mexico)
Contribution of the ITSPyC Association of Professionalism Indigenous Interpreters
Originally from Mexico City, associate of Interpreters and Translators in Public and Community Services
Master in Social Anthropology from the National School of Anthropology and History. He participated in public institutions such as the INI, the Social Development Secretariat of the GDF, INALI, CNA-INAH, Copred CDMX, INM. Out of his own conviction, he dedicates time to research, coordination, disclosure, advice and promotion of Projects for the development of the Indigenous Cultures of Mexico. He is part of the Board of Directors of the Association of Interpreters and Translators in Community Public Services and is currently pursuing a Doctorate in Social Anthropology at the ENAH.
Our Experience as Professional Indigenous Interpreters
From the Association of Interpreters and Translators in Community Public Services, we are interested in forming a strong network of professionals in translation and interpretation so that, in turn, injustices and inequities are minimized and an important identity is developed for those who exercise their linguistic rights and use them to build community.
Ms Alison Rodriguez, President, International Federation of Translators (Australia)
Alison is President of the Fédération Internationale des Traducteurs (FIT). A linguist and translator in legal, human rights and technical fields, she has diverse experience in strategy, policy and promotion of the arts. Having held the office of Secretary General and Vice President in FIT over the last 8 years, she is known for her strong advocacy of multilingualism, multilateralism, and cultural and linguistic diversity and inclusion, with particular focus on indigenous language revitalisation, association development and community building. Alison was a plenary speaker at FIT’s International Year of Indigenous Languages ITD event in 2019.
A World Without Barriers: How Translation and Interpreting navigate language as a barrier to sustaining culture, understanding, and lasting peace
Speakers of minority and indigenous languages are at greatest risk of exclusion and discrimination simply due to the status of their mother tongue. Equal access to healthcare, legal processes, and a safe environment can be less and less taken for granted, but the most vulnerable in this regard are the speakers of minority and indigenous languages. Language should not be a barrier to participation in the global development agenda.
Testimonials
Ms Alfreda Gasparillo Pineda, Rights of women, indigenous interpreters NÁHUATL (Mexico)
Rights of women, indigenous interpreters NÁHUATL, originally from Zitlala Guerrero, Mexico.
Graduated in Education, she worked as a teacher in the Indigenous Subsystem as a bilingual Nahuatl, Spanish teacher. In 2010 she retired and is currently an interpreter and translator in her language combination. He also has the certified interpreter certification issued by the Ministry of Public Education, through the country’s Institute of Indigenous Languages. Certification that, in turn, allows her to be a certified evaluator in the application, procurement and administration of justice in the Nahuatl-Spanish-Nahuatl language. She is also a defender of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and Women, with special attention to Indigenous Women.
My experience as a Professional Indigenous Interpreter
As an interpreter and translator of my mother tongue Nahuatl, I am interested in promoting joint work so that women who have dared to do this profession have emotional support from our colleagues, because sometimes we face the problems of others, but, they stay inside us and we think we can overcome them but, deep down it is not true, so we have to share it with those who have had similar experiences and find out if they have overcome it and how and thus help each other.
Mr Ubaldo Pedro Mariscal, Legal And Indigenous Interpreter of MAZATECO (Mexico)
Legal And Indigenous Interpreter of MAZATECO, Mazatec language speaker from the Lower Zone, from the La Tabaquera Community; Municipality of Acatlán de Pérez Figueroa, State of Oaxaca.
Doctor of Law and trainee in Osteopathic Medicine; He is President of the INDIGENOUS BROTHERS Association. Translator and interpreter in the Mazatec language, specialized in procurement and administration of justice. He is a cultural expert in the Mazatec culture; In his daily work, he is an Agent of the Integrating Public Ministry in attention to Indigenous people, LGTBIII, National and International Tourists, of the Attorney General’s Office of the Republic. He also has some publications of Poems, Legal Vocabularies in the Mazatec language and was the promoter of the Mazatec linguistic standard in 2021.
My experience as a Professional Indigenous Interpreter
As a Mazatec interpreter, and as a professional in law, a necessary issue for indigenous justice, I am concerned about training myself, but also about sharing my experiences with my colleagues and adding to a group that is increasingly prepared, to help us face the adversities in our work, community and professional fields.
Mr Akxan, Musician, Manchu (People’s Republic of China)
He has been learning Manchu, an endangered language, since 2003. He collects traditional Manchu ballads from various Manchu villages, makes them into songs and spreads them, and uses music to inherit the endangered language.
The necessity of national language art to national culture inheritance
Taking the personal experience of learning, collecting and spreading Manchu music as an example, I am going to analyze and share the role of national language art in the inheritance of national language and culture, and the significance to the development of modern society.
Theme 3 – Civil and Language Rights
Ms Jeannette Stewart, Founder Translation Commons (USA)
Ms Jeannette Stewart, Founder Translation Commons, Nest i18n Program Manager
Jeannette Stewart is a strategic leader and has worked with mainstream brands helping them achieve global growth, business revitalization and transformation. Currently she is leading international launches for Nest cameras at Google. She founded Translation Commons, an online volunteer-based public charity aiming to offer and share tools and resources and to facilitate community initiatives. The Language Digitization Initiative creates resources specifically for Indigenous communities to enable their languages online. She is the former CEO of CommuniCare, a life-science translation company with offices in London, Paris, Athens, Budapest and Los Angeles. Jeannette has been involved in high-profile projects such as the Genome Project and prototyping the online Unified Submission Process for the European Medicine Agency. Jeannette has founded, served on the board of directors, moderated, and volunteered in various educational and health charities.
Mr Lucio Bagnulo, Head of Translation and Language Strategy, Amnesty International
Lucio is Head of Translation and Language Strategy at Amnesty International. He won the Think Global Award for Language Industry Person of the Year. He was a panellist at the 2021 LocFromHome session ‘Language for a Just World: How international NGOs use language to help others’ and took part in The Global Podcast, talking about how language and localization forward Amnesty’s remarkable call for justice.
He joined the call for a UN resolution for the protection of translators and interpreters in armed conflict and post-conflict situations. He is a board member of the Language Industry Expert Group of the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Translation, an advisory group that offers expertise in the field of translation and language. He is Co-Chair of the Global Coalition for Language Rights whose goal is to raise awareness of and advocate for language rights as well as help create proactive responses to social, educational, economic and environmental challenges in relation to language.
The role of translation in the context of human rights crises
This presentation focuses on the truly multifaceted role acquired by translation in the context of human rights crises. Translation is indeed present, even if only in the background, in almost every stage of crisis response management. It particularly contributes to bringing Amnesty International’s work closer to the communities whose rights are being violated by speaking their own language, which helps build their trust in the foreign organization standing up for them. Translation is also then an empowering tool that enables these communities to take full ownership of the organization’s research findings and cognitively engage with them. It helps them develop their own language in the sphere of human rights and assists them in taking control of the necessary societal change from the inside.
Ms Thel Morgan, Translation Bureau, Government of Canada
Thel Morgan is a senior interpreter with the government of Canada. She has a Master’s Degree of Advanced Studies in Interpreter Training from the University of Geneva. Since 2019, she has co-led workshops for Indigenous language interpreters at parliamentary or political assignments (such as committees and the federal leaders’ debates)
Indigenous Language Interpretation and the Translation Bureau (Canada)
How the workshops came to exist and the Translation Bureau’s experience and approach.
How the Indigenous language interpreter workshops came to exist and the Translation Bureau’s experience and approach
Dr Kevin Lewis Indigenous Freelance Interpreter and Translator, Ministikwan Lake Cree Nation
Dr. Kevin wâsakâyâsiw Lewis is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Curriculum Studies in the College of Education at the University of Saskatchewan. Has worked with higher learning institutions within the Prairie Provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta in Cree Language Development and Instructional methodologies. Research interests have been language and policy development, second language teaching methodologies, Indigenous Governance, teacher education programming and environmental education. Kevin has assisted in course delivery in language revitalization as well as second language education. For the past 20 years, Dr. Lewis has been working with community schools in promoting land-based education along with the Cree Language and started a grassroots non-for-profit group kâniyâsihk Culture Camps Inc. (www.kaniyasihkculturecamps.com) Dr. Lewis is from Ministikwan Lake Cree Nation and continues to teach about the importance of language and culture.
Working as an Indigenous Freelance Translator and Interpreter
This session will give examples of how far we have come in terms of including Indigenous Languages within Canada. There are a lot of steps that lead to where we are but also the amount of opportunities there are in the future for our languages. We will also examine the language shift of the Alpha Generation with the last Canada Census and explain how exciting this is. There are a lot of moving parts within the Country of Canada and also to get ready for these new speakers, freelancers and translators to continue the work needed.
Dr Guo Wei, Lecturer, Hebei Normal University for Nationalities (People’s Republic of China)
Born in Shenyang, Liaoning Province, China. Doctor of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, master of Minzu University of China, main research fields are Jurchen literature, Manchu literature.
The Significance of Manchu – Chinese Translation Work and Manchu – Chinese Bilingual Literature for Manchu Protection
The ethnic minorities in Northeast China have had frequent exchanges with the Central Plains of China in politics, economy, culture and other fields since ancient times. From “Sushen” to “Goguryeo” to “Jurchen” and then to “Manchuria”, the Manchus and their ancestors have been communicating with the Central Plains for more than two thousand years. From the existing documents we know that Jurchen language is the ancestor language of Manchu. From this point of view, the bilingual literature of Chinese and Jurchen can be seen as the earliest material of “Manchu – Chinese translation”. In the Qing Dynasty, the translation of the Manchu and Chinese reflected the change of the translation strategy in a more detailed way. At present, the Manchu language is basically in a state of functional extinction, but people of vision from all walks of life are still actively protecting and rescuing the Manchu language. The Manchu – Chinese translation can be very helpful in the protection and rescue of the Manchu language.
Mr Ravi Rebbapragada, Executive Director, Samata (India)
The founder and Executive Director of Samata a grassroots NGO, who has been living and working with Adivasi people in the eastern Ghats of India for the last three decades.
Samata Judgement – A landmark from Supreme Court of India
The Supreme Court of India delivered the Landmark Judgement on eleventh of July 1997.
( AIR 1997, SC page No 3297, In Samatha Vs State of AP & Others)
The court decided on the issue of whether the state government has the right to lease lands in V Scheduled areas ( designated Indigenous areas as per the Constitution of India) of Andhra Pradesh to other than tribal persons ( Individual or corporate ) and ruled in favour of tribal people.
Theme 4 – Translation and Interpretation Professional Aspects
Mr Tex Texin, Globalization Architect, Board of Advisors, Translation Commons (USA)
Mr Tex Texin is an industry thought leader specializing in software globalization services. Tex has contributed to several internationalization standards and open source software and has been an advisor to several globalization non-profits. He is an advisor to Translation Commons where he has been architecting their Language Digitization Initiative, bringing the languages of indigenous communities to digital systems. Tex is also a Senior Internationalization Architect for Medable, globalizing their Decentralized Clinical Trial platform to over 60 countries. Before joining Medable, Tex, and his consulting company XenCraft, helped numerous companies create global products and guided companies in taking business to new regional markets. Tex is a popular speaker at conferences around the world. Tex is the owner/author of the popular, instructional I18nGuy.com site.
Dr. Sue Ellen Wright, Professor Emerita Kent State Univ. Inst. for Applied Linguistics (USA)
Professor Emerita of translation and terminology studies
Why Preserve Indigenous Languages?
The topic explores the types indigenous cultures distributed world wide and their potential relationship to their traditional relationship to historical and ethnographical realities, together with their challenges in the digital age.
Dr Nicasio Martínez Miguel, Universidad Autónoma Benito Juárez de Oaxaca (Mexico)
I was born in San Pedro Quiatoni, Oaxaca, México. Quiatoni is an indigenous community that speaks Zapotec and that is my first language. I have a BA in Teaching English and a Master’s Degree in Critical Education of Languages. At the present I am a professor in the Master’s Degree Program of Translation and Interpretation in Indigenous languages.
Oaxaca State University’s Master’s Degree program of Translation and Interpretation in Indigenous Languages is helping to preserve indigenous languages
This presentation demonstrates how Oaxaca State University Benito Juárez’s (UABJO, Spanish initials) Master’s Degree program of Translation and Interpretation in Indigenous Languages is helping to preserve indigenous languages. Due to colonialism, the development of indigenous people’s academic thinking has been in Spanish. As a result, speakers of indigenous languages have little practice in writing in their own languages. UABJO’s Master’s Degree program requires the students to practice and perfect the skill of writing in their own languages so their translations sound natural. While they are writing in their own languages for the program, they also learn the importance of decolonizing their minds, which helps them to write more naturally. The students develop better self-esteem about themselves as they write more and more in their own language. The students’ involvement in the program is also causing their families and communities to see that their language is valuable.
Ms Tina Wellman, Language Resource Developer, University nuxełhot’įne thaaɁehots’į nistameyimâkanak Blue Quills (Canada)
Ms Tina Wellman: Is a Woodland/Northern Plains Cree speaker, sakâw nêhiyaw iskwêw. She holds an MA in Indigenous Languages and has been accepted in the iyiniw pimâtisiwin kiskeyihtamowin Doctoral Program at University nuhelot’įne thaiyots’į nistameyimâkanak Blue Quills. She currently heads the Language Resource Department at University nuxełhot’įne thaaɁehots’į nistameyimâkanak Blue Quills (UnBQ), which develops resources for both Denesųłinẻ and nêhiyawêwin. In addition to resource building, Tina’s role at UnBQ also involves course instruction, language support for students, facilitating language and healing workshops, and fundraising activities, with experience in curriculum development.
Curriculum development and book translation in the indigenous languages
The focus of the talk is two-fold: The process of developing and translating teaching curricula and resources for programs that teach or specialize in indigenous languages, and the translation of Robert Munsch (children’s fiction) books for children. Open access to language resources (UNESCO 2019 Open Educational Resources Recommendation)
Dr Alan Melby, Professor Emeritus Brigham Young University and President of LTAC Global (USA)
(Pre recorded but available for Q&A live)
Professor Emeritus of general linguistics at Brigham Young University and President of Language Terminology, Translation and Acquisition (LTAC Global) (USA)
Alan Melby is a certified translator who represented FIT (the International Federation of Translators) at the launch of the Year of Indigenous Languages (UN Headquarters, New York City, February, 2019)
The Need for a Directory of Interpreters and Translators working with an Indigenous Language
The presentation will report on a research project exploring existing on-line translator and interpreter directories of member associations of the International Federation of Translators. One of the conclusions is the need for a more centralized directory of interpreters and translators who work between an Indigenous language and another language, typically a UN language or other major language.
Dr Kutz Arrieta, Linguist at Google
I have mostly worked in the language industry (Logos Corporation, Microsoft, Oracle, Google) and Research and Academic organizations (different universities and a research centers). I have also been involved with issues of language policies and technologies in the Basque Country.
My main interests lie in Syntax and Semantics and, in the context of computational implementations, in language generation. I am presently involved in dialog systems within Google and I am dedicating 20% of my time to an abstract representation of language project with wikimedia.org.
Preserving Indigenous languages through translation
Access to audiovisual content is an important contributor to language preservation. Having audiovisual content in one’s language is a powerful ally for language preservation and revitalization. But often it is difficult and expensive to create such content. Translating audiovisual content (dubbing and captioning) is economically not only challenging, but it also presents interesting linguistic challenges for small communities, such as voice variation, reading skills of the hearing impaired, non-existing foreign accents, etc.
Keynote
Mr Roy Boney, Jr., Language Program Manager, Cherokee Nation (USA)
Mr Roy Boney, Jr. (Cherokee Nation) is an award-winning artist, filmmaker, and digital media specialist. He has served as an adjunct instructor of Multimedia Design & Cherokee Language Technology at Northeastern State University and a Cherokee language animation instructor for the American Indian Resource Center. He currently works for the Cherokee Nation Language Department as a language program manager. He was named the 2021-22 Sequoyah Fellow at Northeastern State University.
Cherokee Nation Translation
The Cherokee Nation Translation office has translated literally millions of terms over the last decade ranging from complex technology localization to cultural stories. This team is an award winning translation team and is on the leading edge of Indigenous language revitalization efforts in the United States. They speak about what they do in their own words, in Cherokee and English.
Closing Address
Mr Tex Texin, Globalization Architect, Board of Advisors, Translation Commons (USA)
Mr Tex Texin is an industry thought leader specializing in software globalization services. Tex has contributed to several internationalization standards and open source software and has been an advisor to several globalization non-profits. He is an advisor to Translation Commons where he has been architecting their Language Digitization Initiative, bringing the languages of indigenous communities to digital systems. Tex is also a Senior Internationalization Architect for Medable, globalizing their Decentralized Clinical Trial platform to over 60 countries. Before joining Medable, Tex, and his consulting company XenCraft, helped numerous companies create global products and guided companies in taking business to new regional markets. Tex is a popular speaker at conferences around the world. Tex is the owner/author of the popular, instructional I18nGuy.com site.
