Talk to text is built on AI technology called Automatic Speech Recognition. It can be helpful. But sprinkle in ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi? Forget about it! Take this real-life example:
What the speaker said: “I am going to Ka Makana Aliʻi for the Ola Ka ʻĪ event.”
What phone’s AI heard: “I am going to Kamaka Ali for the Oka event.”
It’s even worse when you say the same sentence completely in ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi.
What the speaker said: “E hele ana au i Ka Makana Aliʻi no ka Ola Ka ʻĪ.”
What phone’s AI heard: “Hey Helena, oh you, Kiana LE no Ola KE.”
Huh? Pohō kēia!
What if in the not-so-distant future, an app created by kānaka, for kānaka, existed that could seamlessly perform talk to text and handle even more important tasks like transcribing treasured ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi audio recordings from mānaleo and other esteemed kūpuna?
Building that technology requires a robust database of recordings from ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi speakers. The Lauleo app is designed to capture these kinds of recordings that in turn will be used to teach computers to hear ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi and turn it into text. Ke Kula ʻo Kamehameha and Kanaeokana are among its backers. So are Awaiaulu and Ka Haka ʻUla O Keʻelīkōlani, the U.H. Hilo College of Hawaiian Language.
Keoni Mahelona KSK’03 is a co-creator of the Lauleo app. He’s an alakaʻi with Te Hiku Media, which created the tech infrastructure and has already successfully built speech recognition tools to help ensure the survival of te reo Māori (Māori language) for future generations. To do so, Te Hiku Media amassed over 300 hours of recordings from Māori speakers.
Mahelona says it will take a similar effort to build up the ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi database.
“So not only do you need to read a lot of different sentences, but you also need to have correct pronunciation. It doesn't have to be perfect. We all make mistakes. But if we want to build technologies to help us, we need to be able to understand someone who is just learning the language, and we also need to be able to understand our fluent speakers and native speakers. Everybody is important. It's a kākou effort.”
The kāhea to build this database starts with a fun competition that coincides with Mahina ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi. From Feb. 23-March 2, 2025, Lauleo users can sign up in teams of four or more and then record pre-set ‘ōlelo Hawaiʻi sentences given by the app. The top three teams earn $5,000, $3,000 and $2,000 respectively. And there are also smaller daily prizes.
Not to be lost amidst the leʻaleʻa of competition is an important issue that the Lauleo app is trying to address: data sovereignty. When tech giants create Automatic Speech Recognition tools, they’re using data to turn a profit for their shareholders. What happens if ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi becomes commodified in a similar way? Who controls our language and moʻolelo in its digital form?
Te Hiku Media sees itself as kiaʻi of ‘ōlelo Hawaiʻi and of the data provided by the lāhui. When users sign up, they agree to do the same.
“Think of data like land. That’s what data sovereignty is, right? They’ve taken our land. We now have to pay money to have access to our land, even to buy it back. When you think of data in the same way, you can see how so much is at stake here. We need to have sovereignty over the infrastructure that moves our data between our people,” said Mahelona.
If you want to help uplift and protect ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi in the digital realm, you can download the Lauleo app from the App and Play stores and then create an account to get started. Desktop users can also sign up through the Lauleo website.
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