Cristina Quirino Mariano, a member of the Ticuna people, writes a message using the Linklado app in Manaus, northern Brazil
AFP
Indigenous communities in the Brazilian Amazon face challenges in getting online. However, a smartphone app is now making it easier for them to connect by allowing them to use their own native languages.
Brazil has more cell phones than people, but the country’s 1.7 million Indigenous inhabitants have often been excluded from the connectivity revolution. The “Linklado” app, developed by two young friends from the Amazon region, offers a solution by providing a digital keyboard enabling native communities to write with the mix of Latin letters, bars, swoops, accents, and other marks used in many Indigenous alphabets in Brazil.
Launched in 2022, the app is helping Indigenous users communicate with each other and the world, whether from far-flung villages deep in the Amazon or the cities and towns that dot the region.
The app has been downloaded more than 3,000 times and is free to use. It also offers an option for non-speakers to pay to have texts translated into Indigenous languages, providing income opportunities for Indigenous women who are often left out of Latin America’s biggest economy.
Linklado is not only helping Indigenous people communicate but also contributing to the effort to save endangered languages at risk of dying out, which is a global challenge.
Witoto Indigenous leader and teacher Vanda Witoto hopes the Linklado app will help “save the Bure language,” which is spoken by her people.
The app is indeed a game-changer for Brazil’s native communities, enabling them to write with the mix of Latin letters, bars, swoops, accents, and other marks used in many Indigenous alphabets.
Witoto Indigenous leader and teacher Vanda Witoto hopes the Linklado app will help ‘save the Bure language,’ which is spoken by her people
AFP
The Parque das Tribos neighborhood, where Indigenous people from 35 ethnic groups are currently living in Manaus, Brazil
AFP
The Linklado app is enabling Brazil’s native communities to write with the mix of Latin letters, bars, swoops, accents and other marks used in many Indigenous alphabets
AFP
Amazon
App
Languages
2024-02-02 05:00:03
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