Jan 22, 2024

AWAL: Towards digitizing Tamazight

We are very excited to present Awal, the latest project by Col·lectivaT in collaboration with CIEMEN and Casa Amaziga de Catalunya, under the umbrella of the initiative “Som Part d’educació per la justícia global” (We are part of education for global justice). Awal aims to preserve and promote the Tamazight language in the digital world through the development of innovative tools that facilitate its digital use and dissemination. Additionally, it aims to raise awareness among the Amazigh community about the importance of linguistic data and new technologies for language preservation, raise awareness of the effects of the digital divide, and build a strong and united data community to consolidate the presence of Amazigh in the digital space.

To make the internet understand and speak the Amazigh language, the project focuses on collecting written and oral data from Amazigh speakers, including translated text fragments and voice recordings. These data are then systematized and utilized to create digital applications and tools such as automatic translators and virtual assistants. Through the Awal website awaldigital.org, contributors can make two types of contributions: translate sentences to or from Tamazight in their own words, or read aloud sentences displayed on the screen and record them through the Common Voice platform. To make contributions, participants will need to create their own account and earn points with each of their contributions and validations. Contributions will then be shared with open licenses to promote open-source language technology in Tamazight. The leaderboard on the website will update the number of points accumulated by the most active contributors in the community. Contribution is open to anyone who can read and write in Tamazight. We celebrate the rich diversity of Tamazight variants and welcome speakers from all backgrounds.

Data Marathon: Uniting Efforts to Preserve the Amazigh Language

With the aim of creating a data community and expanding the corpus of written and oral material of the Tamazight language, we will organize the Awal Data Marathon. The event will take place on Saturday, February 17, from 11:00 am to 8:00 pm at the headquarters of CIEMEN (c/ Rocafort, 242 bis 2n, Barcelona), welcoming people from the Amazigh community of all ages, genders, and dialectal variants for an intensive collective translation and recording session to gather the maximum contributions to the project. The Data Marathon is a unique opportunity to join forces in the preservation and promotion of the rich diversity of Amazigh language and culture. We invite you to participate in this collective initiative and contribute your time and knowledge to Awal.

Follow all Awal updates on social networks such as Instagram, Facebook, and X, formerly known as Twitter, and contact us for questions, suggestions, and collaborations at awal@collectivat.cat.