AI-Driven Translator Preserving the Inupiaq Language

Our client, representing local Native communities, secured cultural grant funding to bring her idea to life and partnered with us to transform it into a functional digital tool capable of helping younger generations reconnect with their linguistic heritage. Together, we developed an AI-based translation platform designed to support the preservation of North Slope Inupiaq, an Indigenous Alaskan language at risk of disappearing.

We built the core application, including user authentication, interface design, backend integration, and a custom Inupiaq keyboard supporting characters unavailable on standard device layouts. A significant part of the work also involved developing and fine-tuning a translation model. Because Inupiaq is a polysynthetic language with limited digital resources, we developed custom datasets, addressed OCR and Unicode limitations, and experimented with tokenization strategies to make the model capable of processing real text.

The translation model is now operational and able to process requests in both English-to-Inupiaq and Inupiaq-to-English directions. Its quality continues to improve through ongoing dataset refinement and close collaboration with the client’s linguistic advisors. The AI-assisted platform provides a solid foundation for language preservation and is gradually becoming more accurate and useful as we enhance the model together with the community.