The International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad (IIIT-H), has provided the voice behind Adi Vaani, an artificial intelligence-powered translator for tribal languages recently launched by the Centre. The institute created text-to-speech tools that make it possible to listen to translations in Santali, Mundari and Bhili, while similar work is in progress for Gondi.
The speech technology was developed with the active involvement of native speakers, who recorded their voices on campus to provide training data for the systems. IIIT-H now plans to expand this initiative to cover tribal languages of Telangana, including Koya, Kolami, Naikdi, Chenchu, Kaikadi (Yerukala), Lambadi, Nakkala and Konda Kammara. Alongside IIT Delhi, IIIT-H is one of the key institutions driving this national programme.
Researchers at IIIT-H have also built translation models capable of converting between English, Hindi and Santali. These systems were trained on bilingual datasets collected from the Tribal Research Institute in Odisha and further refined with the help of native speakers. To make the technology widely accessible, the institute’s product labs team deployed it on cloud platforms so it can be used across multiple devices.
“This is a social impact initiative that we are proud to contribute to,” said Radhika Mamidi, who led the IIIT-H project team. “Our goal is to make educational material, health awareness content, government schemes and NCERT resources available in these lesser-served languages using fast-evolving AI technologies.”
She explained that the tools are currently in a Beta stage but will continue to improve with more community feedback. IIIT-H is also enriching digital content in Telangana’s local languages through its Indic-Wiki summer internship programme. With support from the Telangana government and the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, the institute hopes to develop AI solutions for these languages as well.
India is home to more than 700 tribal communities, and experts believe projects such as Adi Vaani will play a key role in safeguarding endangered languages. By combining artificial intelligence with indigenous knowledge, the initiative aims to bridge the digital divide and ensure these voices remain alive in a rapidly changing technological world.