Lig-Aikuma: A Mobile App to Collect Parallel Speech for Under-Resourced Language Studies

This paper reports on our ongoing efforts to collect speech data in under-resourced or endangered languages of Africa. Data collection is carried out using an improved version of the Android application ( Aikuma) developed by Steven Bird and colleagues [1]. Features were added to the app in order to facilitate the collection of parallel speech data in line with the requirements of the French-German ANR/DFG BULB (Breaking the Unwritten Language Barrier) project. The resulting app, called Lig-Aikuma, runs on various mobile phones and tablets and proposes a range of different speech collection modes (recording, respeaking, translation and elicitation). It was used for field data collections in Congo-Brazzaville resulting in a total of over 80 hours of speech.