on phones, the languages ​​of indigenous people spelled out

Linklado is an application that allows indigenous populations of the Brazilian Amazon to write messages, on phones and computers, in their languages.

How do you write a message on your phone in your own language when you belong to an indigenous community in the Brazilian Amazon? The experience has long been a headache, but an application restores these indigenous idioms to their characters. Linklado is the name of this application launched in August 2022, a word formed by combining “lin”, to evoke indigenous languages, and “klado”, derived from the Portuguese word “teclado” meaning keyboard.

Because the goal is to provide indigenous populations, living in remote regions of the immense Amazon region, when they benefit from a connection, as well as in urban centers, with a suitable digital keyboard. “The Linklado app brings a lot of good things for me and indigenous people”Cristina Quirino Mariano, 30, from the Ticuna community, told AFP. “Before, we couldn’t write what we wanted on the phone”. In these communities, not everyone masters Portuguese (the official language of Brazil) and the phones sold in the country only offer the Latin characters used for this Romance language to type messages.

An app designed by teenagers

Historically oral, the indigenous cultures of the territory – today known as Brazil – entered the written world when European settlers sought to transcribe their languages, particularly to convert them to Christianity. Specific resources had to be found, by associating with the characters of the Latin alphabet a set of accents and traits (signs “diacritics”, say linguists) to try to restore these languages. But none of this was, until recently, available on cell phones, which have become so indispensable to Brazil’s 1.7 million indigenous people and other citizens of this ultra-connected country of more than 200 million. residents. Consequence: lack of adequate keyboard, “the natives spoke a lot by audio messages on their phones”explains Noemia Ishikawa, coordinator of the Linklado project.

This 51-year-old biologist also encountered difficulties in translating her research work and sharing it within local communities: “I spent 14 years asking for a keyboard to solve this problem.” Two students, natives of the region without being indigenous themselves, granted his wishes. Juliano Portela was only 17 years old at the time, and his friend Samuel Benzecry, 18 years old. Informed of the problem, Samuel talks to Juliano about it. The latter, who had a good foundation in coding, began designing the application with his friend. “It took us four days to create the application, we didn’t imagine that we would do it so quickly”, explains Juliano. Tests are carried out from May 2022 and the free application is launched in August of the same year.

Backup tool for around forty languages

Today, “the application works for all indigenous languages ​​of the Amazon”, or around forty languages, welcomes Juliano Portela, who today studies in the United States like Samuel Benzecry. Their invention has been downloaded more than 3,000 times. Beyond daily communication, the application allows the translation of books and other texts from Portuguese into indigenous languages. This allows women from these communities to generate income by using their knowledge of local languages. A project called “Linkladas” was set up to bring together these translators.

The application also helps save certain indigenous languages. Vanda Witoto, a 35-year-old activist, is trying to “save the Buré language which is the language spoken by (her) witoto people”. “This keyboard offered the opportunity not to use other characters that are not those of our language”. Beyond the Amazon, safeguarding idioms is a global challenge. Half of languages ​​are doomed to disappear by 2100, the majority being indigenous languages, according to a report published by the UN in 2018.