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Diario de Yucatán: Traductor en maya ("Translator in Maya")

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Profiles of our people

Translator in Maya

Seeking to bring the regional language into technology

Research developed in Yucatán to bring the Maya language closer to new technologies reached one of the world’s most important academic stages in artificial intelligence.

CentroGeo PhD candidate Jaziel Aarón Carballo-Tadeo represented Mexico at the 16th Lisbon Machine Learning School (LxMLS 2026), where he presented a project aimed at teaching computers to understand and transcribe Yucatec Maya.

The goal of Carballo-Tadeo’s research was to reduce the technological gap faced by speakers of Indigenous languages, since current speech-recognition systems work efficiently for languages such as Spanish or English but barely recognize Yucatec Maya.

He noted that the research proposes a method to improve the accuracy with which computers transcribe the speech of Yucatec Maya speakers, through the use of specialized dictionaries and the official rules of Maya orthography.

He highlighted that being admitted to LxMLS 2026 is a significant recognition, since it is a highly competitive international call that brings together students and researchers from different countries each year, along with specialists from prestigious institutions such as the University of Washington, Carnegie Mellon, and the Allen Institute for AI.

In addition to being selected to take part in the academic gathering, his research was one of 24 selected for poster presentation, allowing him to share with the international scientific community a project developed at CentroGeo’s Mérida campus and focused on addressing the technological needs of the Maya language.

An invisible language

CentroGeo PhD candidate Jaziel Carballo-Tadeo said the Maya language remains invisible to most virtual assistants, smartphones, and voice-recognition platforms.

Limited presence

He also stressed that the presence of Latin American researchers at international gatherings such as the Lisbon Machine Learning School is still limited.

An important step

Presenting research focused on teaching computers to understand and transcribe Yucatec Maya marks an important step toward positioning the language within language-technology development and strengthening future international scientific collaborations.

The researcher said the project was carried out in collaboration with Dr. Alejandro Molina-Villegas, who leads the development of language technologies at CentroGeo Mérida, with the goal of advancing tools that enable the digital inclusion of Indigenous languages.

Article by Ilse Noh Canché, published in Diario de Yucatán on August 17, 2026. Translated from the original Spanish for this archive.

TecNM Campus Mérida: pride in an alumnus's AI and Maya-language research

Sun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Tecnológico Nacional de México (TecNM), Campus Mérida, posted a message on its Facebook page recognizing its alumnus Jaziel Aarón Carballo Tadeo, a graduate of Computer Systems Engineering, for advancing the development of artificial intelligence technologies capable of recognizing and processing Yucatec Maya — work presented at the 16th Lisbon Machine Learning School (LxMLS 2026) in Portugal. The institution noted that the project combines technological innovation with linguistic preservation and cultural heritage.

Post by TecNM Campus Mérida on Facebook, August 16, 2026. Translated from the original Spanish for this archive.

TeleYucatán: Interview on LxMLS 2026 and the Maya-language project

Fri, 14 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Live interview with Jaziel Carballo Tadeo about his participation in the 16th Lisbon Machine Learning School (LxMLS 2026), in which he talked about how he got to Lisbon, Portugal, and what his research project on artificial intelligence technologies for recognizing and processing the Maya language is about.

Interview broadcast live by TeleYucatán, August 2026.

TV Azteca: Yucatecan researcher Jaziel Carballo works to have AI recognize, transcribe, and translate the Maya language

Fri, 14 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

#HechosMeridianoYucatán

Yucatecan researcher Jaziel Carballo is working on a project for Artificial Intelligence to accurately recognize, transcribe, and translate the Maya language, seeking to close the digital gap and preserve this ancestral language.

Video interview with Jaziel Carballo, identified in the segment as “PhD Candidate in Geospatial Information Sciences.”

TV Azteca Yucatán segment, aired August 14, 2026 at 10:00 p.m. Translated from the original Spanish for this archive.

PuntoMedio: Seeking to have artificial intelligence recognize and process the Maya language

Tue, 11 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Proposal

Seeking to have artificial intelligence recognize and process the Maya language

Text and photos: Andrea Segura

Yucatec Maya reached an international artificial intelligence (AI) research stage through Jaziel Aarón Carballo Tadeo, who presented a proposal in Lisbon, Portugal, to advance the development of technologies capable of processing and recognizing this Indigenous language.

Carballo Tadeo, a PhD candidate in Geospatial Information Sciences at CentroGeo, took part in the 16th Lisbon Machine Learning School (LxMLS 2026), organized by the Instituto Superior Técnico of the University of Lisbon in collaboration with ELLIS, the European network for AI research.

According to the information provided, around 500 people from more than 20 countries applied to the program, of whom only 135 were selected. The Yucatecan researcher was the only Mexican admitted. In addition to taking part in the academic program, his research focused particularly on speech technology and language recognition. To do so, the proposal uses dictionaries and the official orthographic rules of the language as part of the resources for developing models that allow technologies to process it.

The project seeks to help close the technological gap faced by Indigenous languages compared with languages that have greater representation in artificial intelligence systems, with potential applications in speech-recognition tools, digital assistants, and other language-processing technologies.

Carballo Tadeo, a graduate of the Instituto Tecnológico de Mérida, thus brought research centered on the linguistic heritage of the Yucatán Peninsula to one of the international spaces for scientific training in artificial intelligence.

The researcher’s international participation was supported by Yucatán’s Secretariat of Science, Humanities, Technology and Innovation (Secihti), led by Mirna Manzanilla Romero, which backed the arrangements needed to facilitate his travel and participation in the gathering held in Portugal.

The proposal argues that the development of new technologies should not only consider languages with greater international presence, but should also incorporate Indigenous languages, with the aim of expanding their presence in the digital environment and contributing to their preservation and use in new technological tools.

Highlights: Jaziel Aarón Carballo Tadeo presented a proposal in Portugal to advance the development of technologies capable of processing and recognizing the Maya language.

Article by Andrea Segura, published in PuntoMedio on August 11, 2026. Translated from the original Spanish for this archive.

Radio Fórmula: Yucatec Maya reaches artificial intelligence!

Tue, 11 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Radio Fórmula Yucatán

🇲🇽🤖 Yucatec Maya reaches artificial intelligence!

Yucatecan researcher Jaziel Aarón Carballo Tadeo brought research to Lisbon, Portugal, aimed at having computers recognize and process the Maya language.

📡 His work was selected among only 24 research projects to be presented at the 16th Lisbon Machine Learning School (LxMLS 2026), one of Europe’s leading AI gatherings.

🌎 With more than 774,000 speakers on the Yucatán Peninsula, the project seeks to give the Maya language a place in the technological future so it is not left out of tools such as virtual assistants and speech-recognition systems.

🇲🇽 From Yucatán, the research seeks to pave the way for one of Mexico’s most widely spoken Indigenous languages to also have a place in the digital era.

👏 Yucatecan pride that reaches all the way to Lisbon! @jazielcarballo

#OrgulloYucateco #FormulaNoticias #lxmls2026

Post by Radio Fórmula Yucatán on Facebook, August 2026. Translated from the original Spanish for this archive.

Telesur: Yucatecan researcher brings Yucatec Maya to Lisbon

Mon, 10 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

AI Will Understand — Maya Language Thanks to Researcher

Yucatecan researcher brings Yucatec Maya to Lisbon: proposes a method for artificial intelligence to understand the language.

More than 774,000 Yucatec Maya speakers on the Peninsula face a daily paradox: while any phone easily recognizes English, Spanish, or French, the region’s most widely spoken Indigenous language is practically invisible to technology. No virtual assistant understands it. No app recognizes it. Research presented in Lisbon, Portugal, proposes a method to start closing that gap.

Post by Telesur (@telesuryuc) on social media, August 2026. Translated from the original Spanish for this archive.

CentroGeo: introduces the Maya–Spanish parallel corpus YUA-ES-CCC

Wed, 01 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

CentroGeo Centro Público de Investigación

We present the YUA-ES Communicative Contexts Corpus (YUA-ES-CCC), an open collection of 14,332 phrase pairs in Yucatec Maya and Spanish, organized into 31 everyday contexts: greetings, transportation, everyday conversation, family, food, and more.

More than 14,000 phrases in Yucatec Maya and Spanish, available as open data.

Maya–Spanish parallel corpus (YUA-ES-CCC) An open resource that drives research, education, and the development of language technologies for Indigenous languages.

Learn more at: cgeo.mx/#d35

Project developed in collaboration with Sedeculta Yucatán (Secretaría de Ciencias, Humanidades, Tecnología e Innovación).

The corpus is described in the publication The YUA-ES Communicative Contexts Corpus, available as a preprint on Research Square.

Post by CentroGeo Centro Público de Investigación on Facebook, July 1, 2026. Translated from the original Spanish for this archive.

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

Mon, 01 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Difusión | News

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.