About Us

The Aikuma Project is coordinated by Steven Bird and Robyn Perry, advised by Manuel Maqueda. It grew from Steven's earlier efforts to develop technology for collaborative language documentation, with his PhD students.

We focus on "treasure languages" – any of the thousands of small languages still spoken in the world today. The term was proposed by the Rama people of Nicaragua.

Aikuma means "meeting place" in Usarufa, a language of Papua New Guinea. The Usarufa people were the first to trial the Aikuma app in 2012.

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Vision

Our vision is for a world that sustains thousands of living languages.

Mission

Our mission is to design scalable methods for strengthening the world's treasure languages.

Core Values​

• Agility
• Diversity
• Collaboration
• Experimentation

Four Propositions

1. The society of the future could include thousands of living languages, each spoken alongside a language of wider communication, in a situation of stable bilingualism.
2. Languages are not saved by dictionaries and mobile apps; the pace of language extinction is not slowed by books and documentaries on the world's language crisis.
3. Recognition for small languages – with their unique perspectives on human experience and our world – motivates speakers to keep their languages strong and pass them on to their children.
4. We work with immigrant and indigenous communities to create spaces where stories, lives, and worldviews can be publicly recognized and celebrated. We develop mobile technologies so that anyone can engage with our vision for a world that sustains its languages.