The Government of Nunavut has launched a new text-to-speech tool that reads webpages in the native language of Inuktitut. It can also be used in Bing Translate and other Microsoft tools later this year.
Right now, people living in Nunavut or other parts of Canada can use Microsoft’s Edge browser to access the tool to read webpages out loud in the Inuktitut language. This is part of the Preservation and Promotion of Inuktitut Through Technology Project, led by the Department of Culture and Heritage. The goal of this project is to make the language more accessible and integrated into daily life across Nunavut.
This follows another tool from 2021 when Microsoft added Inuktitut to the Microsoft Translator app. To make the new tool, Microsoft recorded natural Inuktitut language speakers and then used AI tech to create two neural voices called Siqiniq (female) and Taqqiq (male). Following this language, Microsoft and Nunavut are hoping to launch Inuinnaqtun in 2025.
Microsoft isn’t the only tech giant working to support Indigenous languages in Canada. Google launched Inuktut on Google Translate earlier this year.
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Source: Government of NunavutÂ
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