“We have stories to tell...”

“我们有故事要讲……”

2020-12-22 19:20 TAUS

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Interaction between humans and computers has greatly intensified as we sail through the twenty-first century. The ability to access computers and the internet has become increasingly important to completely immerse oneself in the economic, political, and social aspects of the world. However, not everyone has access to this technology. The idea of the "digital divide" refers to the growing gap between the underprivileged members of society who do not have access to computers or the internet; and those who do have access. Education and learning lie at the heart of these issues and their solutions. Learning can only happen through available resources in the language one can understand. Adéṣínà Ayẹni is a Nigerian Yorùbá language and culture advocate, anthropological researcher and translator. His lifelong efforts are a great testimony to his passion for bridging the cultural and linguistic digital divide for his native language, Yorùbá. Yorùbá is a language spoken in West Africa, most prominently Southwestern Nigeria. It is spoken by the ethnic Yorùbá people. The number of Yorùbá speakers is estimated at between 45 and 55 million.” Despite so many speakers, it’s still a low-resource language because of eurocentrism and colonialism,” adds Adéṣínà . Over the years, he advocated for digitally underrepresented languages such as Yorùbá to be considered by global service providers and institutions. He volunteered at the United Nations to provide Yorùbá translations to help his community access significant information. He provided Yorùbá translations for several TedTalk episodes and sent numerous emails to companies to request their products to be localized for Yorùbá as well. “Why can’t the kids in a Nigerian village have a Yorùbá option next to English and French in their video game console?” asks Adéṣínà , “There was no response from most of those global companies. Data Marketplace is therefore a great opportunity to put digitally rare languages like Yorùbá more in front of the technology providers to consider”. Some might think that if a language is available in Google Translate it’s not so much subject to digital discrimination. Even though Yorùbá is among the available languages in Google Translate, “it’s not perfect and needs a lot of work,” says Adéṣínà, “and it alone doesn’t mean much while many other African and/or indigenous languages are often forgotten in AI applications and online platforms as opposed to popular languages.” For instance, the automatic translation option on Twitter still recognizes Yorùbá as Vietnamese. He rightfully states that his community also wants to take part in online discussions and benefit from the latest technologies, such as using a self-driving car that takes commands in Yorùbá. Adéṣínà heard of the Data Marketplace through an online conference and thought of this opportunity as an unmissable one. All the Yorùbá translation data he had offered to companies and institutions without any compensation over the years could now be put on a global marketplace at a price point that he can set himself side by side with Spanish, German, and Italian datasets. “My main motivation has always been contributing to the digital survival and representation of my native language Yorùbá. It’s just a plus that I can make money while serving this higher purpose,” says Adéṣínà . Currently, he sells a dataset of about 2000 segments in the English-Yoruba language pair in the science, technology, and medicine domains. 80% of his datasets include his own translations and 20% include translations done by other translators on his online Yorùbá platforms. hbspt.cta._relativeUrls=true;hbspt.cta.load(2734675, '93c72fc5-17f4-4e74-b9d2-0d33f09adebb', {}); As for the data privacy and ownership concerns, he manages to bypass such issues by working with open-source data. “For instance, I translated a great deal on climate change using English resources available on Wikipedia,” says Adéṣínà. “In Nigeria, people don’t know about climate change as much as the rest of the world so I am providing some kind of public service to educate my community through my translations.” By making them available for commercial use, he hopes more and more services and products will be available in the language that his community best understands. Going forward, he is excited about the prospect of more resources being available in Yorùbá. “Most high-resource languages have been online for a long time. For languages like Yorùbá, Data Marketplace is a unique opportunity to compete for the good of our digitally underrepresented communities” says Adéṣínà “We have stories to tell, stories the world has never seen before, give us the opportunity to tell them and the world would be a better place for all.” His datasets are available for purchase on the Data Marketplace, waiting for AI and ML services providers to acquire them and train their systems to function in Yorùbá, creating an equal level of access to the underprivileged communities such as Yorùbá.
在我们驶过二十一世纪的时候,人类和计算机之间的互动大大加强了。访问计算机和互联网的能力对于完全沉浸在世界的经济,政治和社会方面变得越来越重要。然而,并不是每个人都能接触到这项技术。“数字鸿沟”的概念是指社会中无法使用计算机或因特网的弱势成员之间的差距日益扩大;和那些有权接触的人。教育和学习是这些问题及其解决办法的核心。学习只能通过一个人能理解的语言的可用资源来发生。 Adéminitiínàayni是尼日利亚约鲁巴语和文化倡导者,人类学研究者和翻译家。他毕生的努力充分证明了他对弥合其母语约鲁语的文化和语言数字鸿沟的热情。 约鲁巴语是西非的一种语言,主要分布于尼日利亚西南部。这是由约鲁,巴族人说的。说约鲁巴语的人数估计在4500万到5500万之间。Adéminitiínà)补充说:“尽管有这么多人说约鲁巴语,但由于欧洲中心主义和殖民主义,这门语言仍然是一种资源匮乏的语言。” 多年来,他倡导全球服务提供商和机构考虑使用数字代表性不足的语言,如约鲁语和巴语。他在联合国志愿提供约鲁语和巴语的翻译,帮助他的社区获得重要信息。他为TedTalk的几集节目提供了约鲁语,巴语的翻译,并向公司发送了大量电子邮件,要求他们的产品也为约鲁语,巴语进行本地化。“为什么尼日利亚村庄里的孩子们不能在他们的视频游戏机中除了英语和法语之外,还有一个约鲁语选项呢?”Adéminitiínà)问道,“大多数全球公司对此都没有回应。因此,Data Marketplace是一个很好的机会,可以让技术提供商考虑使用像Yoru.Bámore这样的数字稀有语言“。 有些人可能会认为,如果一种语言可以在谷歌翻译中使用,那么它就不会受到数字歧视的影响。尽管约鲁巴语是谷歌翻译的可用语言之一,但“它并不完美,需要做很多工作,”Adéminitiínà)说,“而且,在人工智能应用程序和在线平台中,与流行语言相反,许多其他非洲和/或土著语言常常被遗忘,因此,它本身并没有多大意义。”例如,推特上的自动翻译选项仍然将约鲁巴语识别为越南语。他理直气壮地表示,他的社区也想参与在线讨论,并从最新技术中获益,比如使用一辆用约鲁语和巴语接受命令的自动驾驶汽车。 AdéMinitiínà)通过一次在线会议听说了数据市场,并认为这是一个不容错过的机会。这些年来,他无偿提供给公司和机构的所有约鲁巴语翻译数据现在都可以放到全球市场上,其价格可以与西班牙语,德语和意大利语数据集并列。“我的主要动机一直是为我的母语Yoru Bá的数字化生存和表达做出贡献。我能在为这个更高的目标服务的同时赚钱,这是一个加分项,“AdéMinitínà)说。 目前,他在科学,技术和医学领域出售约2000个英语-约鲁巴语段的数据集。他的数据集80%包括他自己的翻译,20%包括其他译者在他的在线Yoru和Bá平台上完成的翻译。 hbspt.cta._relativeURLS=true;hbspt.cta.load(2734675,'93c72fc5-17f4-4e74-b9d2-0d33f09adebb',{}); 至于数据隐私和所有权问题,他通过使用开源数据设法绕过了这些问题。“例如,我利用维基百科上的英文资源翻译了大量关于气候变化的内容,”AdéMinitiínà)说。“在尼日利亚,人们对气候变化的了解不像世界上其他地方那么多,所以我正在提供某种公共服务,通过我的翻译来教育我的社区。”通过将这些翻译提供给商业使用,他希望越来越多的服务和产品将以他的社区最理解的语言提供。 展望未来,他对在约鲁巴可获得更多资源的前景感到兴奋。“大多数高资源语言已经在线很长时间了。对于像约鲁语,巴语这样的语言来说,数据市场是一个独特的机会,让我们为数字代表不足的社区的利益而竞争,“AdéMinnitínà)说,”我们有故事要讲,世界上从未见过的故事,给我们机会去讲,世界将会变得更美好。“ 他的数据集可以在数据市场上购买,等待人工智能和ML服务提供商获得这些数据集,并培训他们的系统在Yoru-authbá中运行,从而为Yoru-authbá等贫困社区创造同等水平的访问机会。

以上中文文本为机器翻译,存在不同程度偏差和错误,请理解并参考英文原文阅读。

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