Russia is home to over 160 nationalities. But their cultures, their languages, their voices don't get equal representation in the media. Urbanization of the past decades had a detrimental effect on the local cultures, especially those of smaller ancient tribes. Young people consider the languages of their ancestors less useful and less prestigious. Films, songs, books, YouTube channels, websites, etc. mostly speak Russian. Word of mouth transmission from parents to children has stopped. This process is not unique to Russia, indigenous languages are disappearing all over the world. Sberbank is the biggest bank of Russia, its goal is to preserve and multiply the wealth of Russian people: both financial and cultural. Indigenous languages are an essential part of that wealth.

We created an AI that has learned the disappearing languages of Russia and can teach them back to people.

According to UNESCO, 98 indigenous languages in Russia will disappear in the next 50 years. Most of them will leave no written literature behind. To preserve these languages, we went to remote villages of Russia and recorded hundreds of hours of natives talking. Then we used this material to preserve the languages within the AI that allowed millions of Russians to interact with these languages for the first time.

This project took over two years in the making. We went to remote villages of Russia and recorded hundreds of hours of natives talking. A specially built AI analyzed this linguistic material to reveal the general patterns and logic of the language. Learning algorithms expanded the lexicon based on statistical translation approach. Once the correspondence system between Russian and the endangered language was created, the language was fully preserved within the AI and could be learned by anyone who speaks Russian in the future. That’s how Immortals appeared.

On the 4th of November 2019, National Unity Day, Russia met the Immortals. A 1,5 min film has introduced the project during the news program on Russia's main channel. Russians could interact with the Immortals on a microsite and discover the unique worlds of Nganasans, Ingrians, and Ulchi.

Paid media has reached 35 million people. Social media, press, TV shows and news added 70 million people. The country kept talking about the disappearing languages for 9 weeks. Most Russians hadn’t known these languages existed.

The core of the AI can be now used to save all 98 endangered languages. Further funding was secured for several years to come. Rare specialized linguists have reached out to help teach the Immortals other disappearing languages. There’re hundreds of disappearing languages around the world. This AI can be used to preserve all of them.