AI and the Ainu Language
- 15 July 2021
- 12:00pm – 1:15pm
- Online
- https://dajf.org.uk/event/ai-and-the-ainu-language
- events@dajf.org.uk
- Tweet
AI is becoming ever more relevant in supporting the preservation of endangered languages, including Ainu, because of its capabilities for language transcription, translation, and search/retrieval. The Ainu language has traditionally been passed down orally through traditional folk tales. While it is recognised by UNESCO as critically endangered, a large stock of oral interviews has been actively recorded since the late 20th century in an attempt to preserve the rich folklore and cultural heritage of the Ainu. Nevertheless, much of this has not yet been fully transcribed nor properly archived.
In this webinar chaired by Professor Roger K. Moore, Professor Tatsuya Kawahara, a leading researcher at Kyoto University, will talk about his latest project developing automatic speech recognition and synthesis technologies to assist the preservation of the Ainu language. He will be joined by special guest Sachiko Kibata (90), who will share her thoughts as one of the very few remaining speakers of the Ainu language, as well as presenting some traditional Ainu folklore.
Date: Thursday 15 July 2021
- UK Time: 12:00pm-1:15pm (BST)
- Japan Time: 8:00pm-9:15pm (GMT+9)
About the contributors
Professor Tatsuya Kawahara is a Professor and the Dean of the School of Informatics, Kyoto University. He has published more than 400 papers on speech recognition, spoken language processing, and spoken dialogue systems. He has been conducting several projects including the automatic transcription system for the Japanese Parliament (Diet), and autonomous android ERICA. He received the Commendation for Science and Technology by the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) in 2012. He was a General Chair of IEEE Automatic Speech Recognition and Understanding Workshop (ASRU 2007). He also served as an Editorial Board Member of Elsevier Journal of Computer Speech & Language (CSL) and IEEE/ACM Transactions on Audio, Speech & Language Processing (TASLP). He is the current Editor-in-Chief of APSIPA Transactions on Signal & Information Processing (ATSIP). He is a Board Member of APSIPA and ISCA, and a Fellow of IEEE.
Sachiko Kibata is one of the few surviving speakers of the Ainu language. Born in Nukibetsu, Biratori, on 23 July 1930, she is now 90. She began serious study of the Ainu language in 1990 under the guidance of the late Kayano Shigeru. To train her successors, she has been working as a language teacher at the Ainu Language School in Nibutani, Biratori, since 1998. She has held sessions demonstrating Ainu language and folklore at the Nibutani Ainu Culture Museum and across Japan, playing a major role in disseminating and raising awareness of Ainu culture. In recognition of these efforts, she received the Award for Promoting Ainu Culture in 2012, the Hokkaido Culture Award in 2018, and the Cultural Affairs Commissioner’s Commendation in 2019.
