Why should communities think about the future now?

Short Answer #

Because language resources collected today may become some of the most valuable assets available to future generations.

Expanded Answer #

Many communities are currently making decisions about:

• Recordings
• Archives
• Educational materials
• Technology
• Publishing
• Data governance

These decisions may influence language revitalization efforts for decades. A recording collected today could eventually support:

• Language learning
• Storybooks
• Dictionaries
• Curriculum
• Speech recognition
• Artificial intelligence
• Future educational tools

The question is not whether future technologies will emerge. They will. The question is whether communities will have the language resources needed to benefit from them. Language Cloud exists in part to help communities prepare for that future while meeting today’s needs. The best time to build language infrastructure was years ago. The second-best time is today.

Technology & AI