The two indigenous languages have been deemed endangered by UNESCO.
Motorola has added support for two indigenous languages spoken in Brazil, Venezuela and Colombia as part of a larger effort to make technology more accessible.
Kaingang and Nheengatu will be among the language options available on Motorola Android devices. Any Motorola phone updated to Android 11 will be able to access the new language options, not just its most expensive models.
Janine Oliveira, Executive Director for Globalization Software, Motorola, said: “We believe that this initiative will raise awareness towards language revitalization and not only will impact the communities that we’re working directly with. Right now we’re in the process of open sourcing all that language data from Android into Unicode.”
The Nheengatu community of about 20,000 people live mostly in the Amazon, but only about 6,000 people in the region still speak the Nheengatu language, so UNESCO considers it severely endangered.
Juliana Rebelatto, Globalization Manager and Head Linguist, Motorola, said: “Both of the indigenous communities rely heavily on mobile technology, even though they may not always have reliable Internet access. Teachers use their mobile phones in their classroom to teach their curriculum, so now that the phones will be in Kaingang and Nheengatu this will really help with the learning process.”
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