# Redefining technology for indigenous languages

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.01522 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.01522/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 7 of its 97 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 2 Apr 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 7 of 7)

- [Cross-lingual Language Model Pretraining](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1901.07291/) (2019)
- [The State and Fate of Linguistic Diversity and Inclusion in the NLP World](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.09095/) (2020)
- [How multilingual is Multilingual BERT?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.01502/) (2019)
- [Challenges of language technologies for the indigenous languages of the Americas](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1806.04291/) (2018)
- [AI4D -- African Language Program](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.02516/) (2021)
- [Neural Machine Translation for the Indigenous Languages of the Americas: An Introduction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.06804/) (2023)
- [NLP Progress in Indigenous Latin American Languages](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.05365/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

In this paper, we offer an overview of indigenous languages, identifying the causes of their devaluation and the need for legislation on language rights. We review the technologies used to revitalize these languages, finding that when they come from outside, they often have the opposite effect to what they seek; however, when developed from within communities, they become powerful instruments of expression. We propose that the inclusion of Indigenous knowledge in large language models (LLMs) will enrich the technological landscape, but must be done in a participatory environment that encourages the exchange of knowledge.