NSF funds two inclusive language projects by UB linguist

A UB researcher has received two major grants from different divisions of the National Science Foundation (NSF) that will, in one case, facilitate the adoption of underrepresented languages in new technologies and, in the second case, train students in research methods related to conducting field work in those languages.

Fabiola S. Henri, associate professor of linguistics in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, says the projects from the NSF’s Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences (BCS) and Office of International Science and Engineering (OISE) will focus on creole languages that are underrepresented, not only from a research perspective, but in how those languages are applied and incorporated within existing and emerging digital platforms.

“I am skeptical of the label ‘creole languages’ as a distinct category,” says Henri. “My research focuses on the broader phenomenon of contact languages that emerged from European colonization. This includes not only traditional creoles but also languages like Hawaiian Pidgin, which developed in parallel circumstances but are often classified differently.”

The two-year BCS grant provides $268,000 in funding to create automatic speech-recognition systems that can transcribe oral data from Mauritian Creole, spoken predominantly in communities on the island off the west African coast, and Guadeloupean and Martiniquan Creole, two languages spoken on islands in the Caribbean. 

These tools would replace the time-consuming task of manual transcription, which is largely responsible for their omission from many current devices.

“I call these ‘critical languages’ because we’re talking about data and resources that are absent from what’s being used and developed in all kinds of AI technologies. We have data on European languages, but not for these underrepresented languages. Developing widely accessible tools like speech recognition requires training data from the target language,” says Henri, an expert in contemporary creole linguistics. “For a vast number of the world’s languages, this essential data simply doesn’t exist.”

The OISE grant, a $686,700 project, is an expanded version of a two-year grant Henri previously received. Like its predecessor, the current five-year project is designed specifically for students to gain international research experience. The earlier grant had students working in Guadeloupe, but the current grant will involve five different countries — Guadeloupe, Martinique, Haiti, Mauritius and Seychelles — and will train both undergraduate and graduate students from across the U.S. 

The students will learn how to conduct linguistic fieldwork and will receive instruction on how best to write for publication and conference presentations.

Each year, six U.S. students will conduct research in one of the five countries. Beginning in summer 2026, Henri will accompany students to Mauritius, where they’ll spend five weeks with an international team of mentors immersed in the local language. Each student will have an individualized research topic and will be trained in traditional documentary methods and modern computational approaches to create appropriate protocols to collect data related to that topic from native speakers.

As part of the experience, students will participate in the UB Creolist Workshop. Developed by Henri when she arrived at UB in 2020, the workshop brings together scholars from across the U.S. with students to discuss new research in creole linguistics.

“Projects like this provide valuable data while at the same time provide students with experience that can encourage them to continue working with these important underrepresented languages,” says Henri. “My first experience was super successful recruiting students from around the U.S. who later applied to UB.”

It is all work for Henri that is driven by a personal passion. She’s one of those speakers — her native language is Mauritian creole.

“These languages have been and still remain the object of prejudice. People don’t think of them as legitimate languages, a sentiment sometimes expressed by native speakers,” she says. “My goal has always been to demonstrate that these are complete and complex languages, worthy of serious study. Ultimately, they offer a unique window into human cognition.

“These projects can help change the negative perception and raise awareness to the importance of creole languages.”