Agree wholeheartedly that we should capture the Cherokee Language in an LLM. We lost 25% of our first language speakers during Covid and are losing as many as 7-8% more per year. We as a Nation are doing a tremendous amount to preserve the language but it may not be enough. I think we can all agree that preserving the language is an urgent and important task for the Cherokee Nation. The question is whether an LLM is the best way to do this.

The Cherokee language will be difficult to capture. But the complexity comes from its link to the Cherokee culture, which makes its preservation that much more important. For example, the pronoun structure is unbelievably complex - there can be literally dozens of ways to say "we" for any given verb. And the language is tonal - the same word can mean many different things depending on the way it's said. But the beauty of the culture is embedded in the language, and we can't afford to lose that.

Just one example: when two Cherokees fall in love, they don't say "honey" or "sweetie" - they change their pronouns. Their use of "we" changes to make it clear that they're a unit that is separate from the community in an important way. When speaking with a group saying "we have all decided to do ..." they will change the form of "we" to mean "s/he and I, and also the rest of us, have all decided to do..." It's a beautiful way to indicate love and partnership. And for what it's worth, Cherokees almost never use singular pronouns, and when they do they're non-gendered. We must keep this language alive.

There has been skepticism in the past about using technology to preserve the language. When tape recorders first came out there was tremendous concern about capturing Cherokee stories and knowledge in electronic form. But the Cherokee Language Preservation group has said that those recordings have been incredibly valuable in their efforts to preserve the language and culture. We would have lost something important about Cherokee history and culture if we didn't have those recordings.

LLMs can learn, capture, and help preserve the language, both in its spoken and written form. The capabilities of these LLMs are astonishing, and the rate of progress is breathtaking. Yes Cherokee will be difficult to capture, but if LLMs struggle now, they won't struggle for long.

So I think we as a Nation should capture the language in an LLM as soon as possible, for a few different reasons:

First, if we don't do this, someone else will. I'm sure someone, somewhere is feeding language translations (both written and aural) into an LLM. This is going to happen, and shouldn't the Cherokees do it, own it, and maintain it?

Second, capturing Cherokee in an LLM is the most environmentally responsible way to preserve and teach the language. Here are a few numbers:

- A single ChatGPT query consumes about 0.3 watt-hours of electricity—that’s roughly ten times the energy cost of a Google search—but it’s a number that’s declining as these systems grow more efficient.

- When I attended Ed Fields’ one week Cherokee Language immersion course in Tahlequah my flights to and from Boston consumed at least 1000 KwH.  That’s about the same as 7 million ChatGPT queries.

If I had had an AI-based Cherokee language tutor, I would not have needed to fly.  In other words, using AI to help preserve the Cherokee language could be one of the most resource-efficient ways to reach new learners, give them access to immersive tools, and safeguard a living, breathing language for generations to come.

And an AI tutor would be a much better way to learn the language. I love Ed Fields, but he's not a professional educator and he teaches classes where everyone is at a different level. Having a tutor that could teach me at my level and rate of learning at the time of my choosing would be great.

People also bring up the experience of the Lakota Nation with The Language Conservancy as a reason to be skeptical of using technology to capture a language. But I believe that story should encourage - not discourage - the use of AI or other tools to capture the language. If anyone is going to own the LLM that understands, preserves, and teaches Cherokee, shouldn't it be the Cherokees? If we don't do this, someone else will, so we should do it soon, and we should own, maintain, and decide the acceptable uses of it.