Programme 02

YetiVoices: Himalayan language preservation

Preserving the unique languages of the Himalayan region through community-centred documentation, careful archiving and technology built with speakers.

Our approach

Core sentence corpus

1k structured sentences recorded with native speakers.

Cultural-linguistic repository

10+ hours of context-rich, endangered vocabulary.

Structured documentation

Rigorous processing into research-ready corpora.

Future-proof vision

400 hours per language under FAIR archival standards.

Featured languages

High-altitude and Buddhist heritage languages

Many of these languages have fewer than a few thousand fluent speakers and almost no digital footprint. Documentation is time-critical.

Sherpa

Endangered

ཤེར་པ་

A Tibeto-Burman language of high-altitude communities with rich cultural heritage.

Script: Tibetan
Speakers: Documenting

Limbu

Endangered

ᤕᤠᤰᤌᤢᤱ ᤐᤠᤴ

A Kiranti language with a strong oral tradition and its own script.

Script: Limbu
Speakers: Documenting

Gurung

Vulnerable

गुरुङ

A tonal Tibeto-Burman language of the central hills.

Script: Devanagari
Speakers: Documenting

Tibetan

Vulnerable

བོད་སྐད

A classical language with both classical and colloquial variants.

Script: Tibetan
Speakers: Documenting

Tamang

Vulnerable

तामाङ

Documented across multiple dialect regions of central Nepal.

Script: Devanagari
Speakers: Documenting

Thakali

Endangered

थकाली

An endangered language of the Mustang region with unique cultural heritage.

Script: Devanagari
Speakers: Documenting

Humli

Endangered

हुम्ली

A high-altitude Tibetic language of Humla's Buddhist heritage communities.

Script: Tibetan
Speakers: Documenting

Project impact

Languages

Himalayan and Buddhist heritage

10+

Cultural hours

Songs, rituals and oral history

400h

Per-language goal

FAIR archival target

Scripts

Tibetan, Limbu, Devanagari

Support YetiVoices

Elders are the last fluent speakers of several of these languages. Funding, fieldwork partners and speaker networks all move this forward.

Support the project