GeoInt Difusión: It might be possible to browse the web in Maya

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It might be possible to browse the web in Maya

Iván Canul Ek

The article introduces the T’aantsil project, a linguistic corpus platform for Yucatec Maya led by Alejandro Molina-Villegas, a Conahcyt researcher based at CentroGeo.

The initiative seeks to bring the Maya language into the digital space, allowing its speakers to access technologies already available in other languages. T’aantsil compiles multimedia material from Maya-speaking communities through interviews, videos, and audio recordings that are transcribed in Maya, translated into Spanish, and then into English using artificial intelligence.

Molina-Villegas notes that “the Maya language lags behind in the digital space compared with other, better-represented languages,” and points out that the platform helps preserve the language amid its risk of disappearing, as the number of speakers continues to decline.

The platform, available at taantsil.com.mx and developed with César Can Canul of Uady, allows users to search for Maya words and see interview excerpts, transcriptions, and translations, including regional variants.

Article by Iván Canul Ek, published in GeoInt Difusión (CentroGeo) in April 2024. Translated from the original Spanish for this archive.