This article is a PB Bite summary of the main article, Lᴏᴡ-ʀᴇsᴏᴜʀᴄᴇ ʟᴀɴɢᴜᴀɢᴇs: ᴡʜᴀᴛ ᴛʜᴇʏ ᴀʀᴇ ᴀɴᴅ ᴡʜʏ ᴛʜᴇʏ ᴍᴀᴛᴛᴇʀ.

Takeaway: Some languages are not well-equipped for education. But foreign literature in translation can help.

Terms, Concepts, & Definitions:

  • low-resource language: languages that lack a large amount of literature.
  • natural language processing: type of artificial intelligence used in machine translation and modeled after human language processes.

Natural language processing studies large amounts of literature to get a sense of language. But only a handful of languages in the world have enough literature. That means information about modern medicine, finance, tech, and other essential topics cannot quickly and easily be taught or transferred to speakers of most languages.

Foreign literature in translation: Translating works like Harry Potter into these languages help lay the groundwork for making new topics more readily accessible. World-building novels:

  • add to the corpus of literature
  • expand vocabulary
  • teach children to read and write
  • teach teachers how to build knowledge and communicate

Learn more here.