Motorola’s mission right now is “Smarter Technology for All” and part of that is embracing inclusitivioty. As part of this program, the OEM has become the first mobile phone manufacturer to add support to not one but two endangered indigenous languages: Kaingang and Nheengatu. All Motorola devices running on Android 11 will be able to use the two languages which are used in some parts of Latin America.
Latin America is Motorola’s biggest market and they have been doing great in Brazil in particular. They are second only to Samsung in terms of market share, even beating Apple. So it makes sense that they are paying particular attention to that region. They don’t think they will get a big return in investment with this new addition but it is part of their bigger mindset for digital inclusion. According to Janine Oliveira, Executive Director of Globalization Software at Motorola Mobility, this “contributes to the survival of indigenous languages and cultures.”
The Kaingan language is already designated a “definitely endangered” language and is spoken by only half the community of an agricultural community in southeastern Brazil. This means children are not learning it as their first language. Meanwhile, only around 6,000 people in the community speak Nheengatu in their area in the Amazon and it has been designated as “severely endangered”, the second most serious category from UNESCO.
Since both communities rely heavily on mobile technology, despite the lack of reliable internet access, having the languages on the Motorola mobile devices will be useful in teaching and learning and keeping the language alive among speakers. Motorola is working with Google so both languages will be added to Android Open Source Project and Gboard. They will also work with the Unicode consortium to open source all of the language data.
This may not mean that much to people who don’t speak either language. But we can all agree that this is crucial towards keeping it alive within their respective communities. Motorola said they will continue their research with the indigenous communities to continue enriching the lives of their consumers.
