Kamchatka Researchers Develop Digital Apps to Help Preserve the Koryak Language

Both apps are available on RuStore, the App Store, and Google Play. The first, Yultayat (Orion Constellation), is a weather service in Koryak that displays temperature, wind speed, precipitation, humidity, UV levels, and sunrise and sunset times. For users who do not speak the language, the app offers icon-based navigation, along with a calendar of traditional rituals and holidays featuring archival photographs from expeditions.

The second app, Koryak tuyu, is an interactive self-study tool for beginners. It includes an alphabet with audio pronunciation, a thematic dictionary, a grammar guide, audio materials, exercises, and quizzes that allow users to learn the language at their own pace.

The projects were developed by a team of researchers and programmers at Vitus Bering Kamchatka State University. Yulia Fayzrakhmanova is the apps' author, while Dinara Stepina served as programmer. Work to digitize the languages of the Indigenous small-numbered peoples of the North will continue under the Molodezh i deti (Youth and Children) national project through the Kampus pervootkryvateley (Campus of Pioneers).