Preserving Language Heritage Through Speech Technology: The Case of Upper Sorbian

The modern world is facing a crisis with the rapid disappearance of endangered languages, which poses a serious threat to global cultural diversity. Speech Technologies and Artificial Intelligence present promising opportunities to address this crisis by supporting the documentation, revitalization, and everyday use of these vulnerable languages. However, despite recent and remarkable advancements in speech technology, significant challenges persist, particularly for languages with very limited resources and unique linguistic features.
This paper details the development of Upper Sorbian speech technologies, focusing on the creation of a practical Speech-to-Text (STT) system as a versatile tool for language preservation. The study explores the current state of Sorbian languages and underscores collaborative efforts with the Foundation for the Sorbian People. Through a series of pilot and successive projects, each phase has contributed to the steady advancement of speech recognition modules and supporting tools, improving their performance, effectiveness and practical usability.