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Motorola expands Indigenous languages support with addition of Ladin

Motorola and the Lenovo Foundation are committed to inclusion and smarter technology for all, and today we reaffirm this dedication with the expansion of our Indigenous Languages Support Initiative. As part of our ongoing efforts to raise awareness and empower Indigenous communities, Motorola is proud to announce the addition of Ladin, a minority language spoken in Italy’s Dolomites region (South of Tyrol), to the list of over 90 languages supported in our smartphones.

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) estimates that one Indigenous language disappears every two weeks, resulting in the potential loss of around 3,000 unique languages by the end of the century. That’s why over the past three years, Motorola has been at the forefront of this mission, championing the revitalization of endangered languages across the globe.

With a focus on Europe for our latest phase of the Indigenous Languages Support Initiative, Motorola conducted extensive research to identify minority and endangered languages needing support. Among the languages considered, Ladin became a significant candidate, being one of the 12 officially recognized minority languages in Italy and one of three without a kinstate, or entity that is close to the region where their kin-groups reside. With only 30,000 speakers, UNESCO classifies Ladin as an endangered language.

“We’ve learned over the past few years that it is imperative that we work closely with the community of speakers and scholars that are passionate and committed to saving and promoting the language,” said Janine Oliveira, Executive Director of Software Globalization, Motorola. “This rang true for the Ladin community and made the decision to digitize the language in our devices easy.”

Ladin MotorolaMotorola worked alongside the Lenovo Foundation, and several translators and reviewers from the Ladin Institute, Micurá de Rü, led by Professor Paul Videsott, Professor for Romance Philology at the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano (UNIBZ). “This will definitely help Ladin and other minority languages to be more visible,” said Professor Videsott. “Smartphones are like the pencil of the 21st century, and having minority languages, including Ladin, in the motorola edge 50 series, has the same importance of having a language in a book.”

Hello Indigenous whitepaper

At Motorola, we know indigenous populations are interacting with mobile technology and are one of many diverse groups that make up our valued consumer base. It’s why we started the project, as we aim to preserve human heritage and the unique histories of Indigenous cultures while empowering future generations. But we also believe we have a responsibility to inspire others to do the same. Through June 2024, Motorola has open-sourced over 1 million translated indigenous words, allowing other companies to promote these languages through their interfaces, furthering revitalization efforts worldwide.

Today, we’re also excited to share the latest version of our Hello Indigenous whitepaper written in partnership with Lenovo Foundation and UNESCO, serving as a blueprint for others to follow in their footsteps.

Ladin is the latest of several endangered languages that Motorola has added to its smartphone interface, including Kuvi and Kangri (spoken in regions of India), Cherokee (spoken in the United States), Kaingang (spoken in Brazil) and Nheengatu (spoken in the Amazon). Motorola remains committed to our mission of inclusion and cultural preservation, leveraging technology to bridge linguistic divides and foster a more diverse and interconnected world. To access the full data sets for each of our digitized endangered Indigenous languages, please visit: https://www.motorola.com/us/about/endangered-indigenous-languages-data-set

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Earth Day 2023: Investing in our planet

Each year, April 22nd marks an important day for our planet – Earth Day – a day dedicated to honoring the achievements of the environmental movement and raising awareness of the need to protect Earth’s natural resources for future generations. As a global technology powerhouse operating in markets across the globe, we fully understand the role we have in raising awareness and taking action to help protect our planet. In 2021, we announced a set of long-term KPIs that will help to do so, including achieving a 30% improvement in the energy efficiency of our mobile phones by FY 29/30.

As a Lenovo company, we are actively committed to investing in our planet through a number of key initiatives that will help to improve energy efficiency, increase sustainable packaging and product design, and reduce emissions. In January 2023, Lenovo announced its commitment to achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, with science-based targets validated through the Science Based Targets initiative’s Net-Zero Standard. 

To learn more about all of the actions Lenovo as a whole is taking to build a brighter, more sustainable future for our customers, colleagues, communities, and planet, visit https://news.lenovo.com/campaign/earth-day-2023.

MOTOROLA, the Stylized Motorola Logo and the Stylized M Logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Motorola Trademark Holdings, LLC, and are used under license. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. © 2023 Motorola Mobility LLC.

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Motorola expands its indigenous languages digital inclusion initiative with two new endangered languages spoken in India

Today, in partnership with the Lenovo Foundation, Motorola is excited to announce the next phase of our indigenous languages digital inclusion initiative with the addition of two new languages – Kuvi and Kangri – spoken in regions of India. Over the last two years, we’ve added the support of three endangered indigenous languages to our devices – Cherokee (spoken in the United States), Kaingang (spoken in Brazil) and Nheengatu (spoken in the Amazon). We’re incredibly thrilled to continue our commitment to embracing inclusivity and delivering smarter technology for all, by delivering the first-ever Kuvi language writing system and keyboard, and a fully localized Kangri smartphone User Interface to our devices.*

Of the 2,464 endangered languages around the world listed in the UNESCO Atlas of World’s Languages in Danger, India tops the list with 197 endangered languages, followed by the U.S. (191) and Brazil (190). When selecting the languages for this most recent phase of our project, we analyzed many factors including the percentage of speakers in the communities to indicate loss of language, community access to technologies, engagement with the broader community, and availability of linguistics resources. We found that while the Kuvi language community accounts for about 155,000 people, who live primarily in Odisha and Andhra Pradesh, India, only about 9% of the people in the region still speak the language. Similarly, we discovered that while Kangri is spoken by around 1 million people in India, only a very small fraction are fluent speakers.

The first-ever Kuvi language writing system

With this project, Motorola and the Lenovo Foundation worked closely with the Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS) under the guidance of Dr. Achyuta Samanta, Founder, KIIT & KISS and leadership of Dr. Sushree Sangita Mohanty and support from the Kuvi speakers & language experts to determine the needs of the Kuvi communities in all regions where Kuvi is spoken. Together we determined that the most important step in Kuvi Language Preservation would be to develop the first-ever Kuvi language writing system. Additionally, to facilitate the usage of this new written system, we created a Kuvi keyboard supporting 4 scripts – Kuvi Odia, Kuvi Telugu, Kuvi Devanagari and Kuvi Latin. The new keyboard is available for download via the Google Play Store to help with the utilization of the written form in smartphones and allow for other forms of digitization.

“We at Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS) are delighted to partner with Motorola and Lenovo Foundation in this one-of-its-kind project to revitalize the endangered status of Kuvi language,” said Samanta. “KISS with support from the Lenovo Foundation has been integral in bringing together the member of tribal communities (Kondh, Kond and Jatapu), linguistic & technical experts, and various other fraternities to collaborate with the Motorola Software Globalization team and develop a keyboard for the Kuvi Language. This initiative sets the path for the revival of many more such languages, helping to preserve the rich legacy, knowledge and heritage that rests in the depths of our country.”

The first fully localized Kangri Smartphone User Interface

We also worked alongside linguists, scholars, and experts from the Kangra, Hamirpur and Una districts of Himachal Pradesh, to deliver the first fully localized Kangri. Smartphone User Interface, in both AOSP content and Motorola Experience apps. To make for a seamless Kangri experience on our devices, we also added Unicode Common Locale Data Repository (CLDR) support with a richer Kangri language data and user interface, all locale-specific patterns for formatting and parsing such as dates, times, currency, measure units, country & language information. Localizing over 200,000 English words into Kangri on our devices means that from the moment a Kangri user sets up their device, they can select the language and navigate a richer UI for both Android AOSP and Motorola experiences.

“With just about 1.7 million speakers of Kangri from a total 1.4 billion people who make India, Motorola and Lenovo Foundation’s language revitalization effort is truly a testimony of their commitment to preserving endangered languages,” said Professor Sunhu Sharma, consultant to Motorola’s Endangered Indigenous Language Initiative for Kangri. “The project was humongous and extremely gratifying, as researchers, tribals, linguists, and tech professionals, worked together to localize over 200,000 English words into Kangri on Motorola’s devices, which will enable Kangri speakers to set up their device in their language and navigate their phone in their mother tongue.”

To further our efforts in bringing more awareness and action to revitalize endangered indigenous languages, this past December, Sergio Buniac, President of Motorola, announced at UNESCO’s  International Decade of Indigenous Languages event, that we are also partnering with UNESCO to conduct further research on the impact and potential of digitizing endangered indigenous languages. “Lenovo and Motorola, in collaboration with UNESCO New Delhi Office, are in the planning phase to develop a toolkit sharing experiences and technology in digitizing endangered indigenous languages,” said Hesekiel Dlamini, Officer in Charge, UNESCO, New Delhi. “This is in line with our shared vision for digital inclusion of indigenous communities.”

In addition to these languages, we also recently introduced a new logo dedicated to our indigenous languages digitization initiative. The new logo is meant to make support of these languages more recognizable on our devices and raise awareness towards the cause.

“With each phase of our endangered indigenous languages project, our goal is to help bridge the gap in digitally inclusive technology and inspire more actions towards the revitalization of these languages”, said Janine Oliveira, Executive Director of Globalization Software at Motorola Mobility. “The addition of Kangri and Kuvi to our growing list of supported languages is a milestone we’re excited to celebrate, but our work doesn’t stop here.”

Moving forward, we will continue to conduct research alongside indigenous communities and engage with regional teams to enrich Motorola experiences and the lives of our incredible consumers.

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