Ana Maria Machado

Brazilian linguist preserving endangered Amazonian languages through AI

Ana Maria Machado (b.1982) developed VoiceWeaver, an AI system preserving 43 critically endangered Amazonian languages by analyzing elders' speech patterns. Her 2015 breakthrough with the nearly extinct Ticuna-Yuri dialect demonstrated neural network resurrection of grammatical structures thought lost since 19th century missionary suppressions.

Machado's team lived among 17 isolated tribes, recording over 500,000 linguistic samples. The resulting Polyglot Forest Database enables real-time translation between indigenous languages, crucial for coordinating forest protection efforts. Her 2021 "Talking Trees" project embeds eco-sensors translating plant electrical signals into ancestral speech patterns.

Despite death threats from illegal loggers, Machado continues deploying solar-powered language totems along threatened river systems. Google AI recently partnered with her NGO to implement voice-recognition canoes patrolling protected areas.