Peter Keegan (Waikato-Maniapoto, Ngāti Porou) from the University of Auckland's faculty of education and social work, is delighted that efforts are being made to correct Siri's pronunciation errors, such as saying car-tyre instead of Kaitaia.
Last week, Māori speech and language specialists came together to discuss how to overcome the challenges of text to speech technology using Te Reo Māori and its potential for the future.
“We have groups that are working on analysing Māori oral speech, looking at how the language has changed over time," Keegan says.
“We also have groups working on technologies such as the development of speech to text and text to speech in Māori."
This is the second hui since 2018, and Keegan says that one of the major difficulties in working on this project is finding people with adequate skills in both tech and Te Reo.
"There is an extreme shortage of capable people who have both a background in Te Reo Māori and programming language to work in this industry."