Emmanuel Ngue Um

Dr. Emmanuel Ngue Um is an Associate Professor of African Languages and Linguistics at the Higher Teacher Training College of the University of Yaounde 1 in Cameroon. He also serves as Head of the Department of Cameroonian Languages and Cultures at the Ecole Normale Supérieure of the University of Bertoua. As a multilingual scholar fluent in several minority languages of Cameroon including Basaa, Ewondo, Duala, Bati, Bakola, and Mvumbo, Dr. Ngue Um brings firsthand experience of linguistic diversity to his academic work.

Dr. Ngue Um's research focuses on bridging the gap between resource-rich and resource-poor languages through technology. His primary areas of interest include:

• Language documentation and description
• Language revitalization
• Digital Humanities applications for language preservation
• Artificial intelligence for linguistic diversity
• History of African linguistics
• Computational tools for language study

His scholarly work demonstrates a consistent focus on how technology can be leveraged to preserve linguistic diversity and make artificial intelligence more equitable. Dr. Ngue Um has published extensively on topics ranging from verbal gestures in Cameroonian multilingual contexts to critical examinations of mainstream linguistics scholarship in Africa, with particular attention to the sociopolitical implications of language classification and policy.

Dr. Ngue Um has received recognition through various professional roles:

• Member of the Endangered Languages Project Committee since 2018
• Community representative for Basaa in Mozilla's Common Voice Initiative
• Principal Investigator for Common Voice Basaa
• Co-founding member and coordinator of the Association of Digital Humanities of French-speaking Africa (AHNAF)
• Promoter of the Institute of Digital Humanities of French-speaking Africa (INHUNUMAF)
• Editorial Board member for the Journal of Digital History and International Journal of Humanities and Arts Computing

His grant-funded work includes language documentation projects for Bakola and Bati languages, development of the Ewondo-French machine translation system, and contributions to the Common Voice project for Basaa language data collection. Dr. Ngue Um previously served as Director of the Archive of Languages and Oral Resources of Africa (ALORA) from 2014 to 2020 at CERDOTOLA.

Dr. Ngue Um is actively involved with several research teams and initiatives focused on digital language preservation, including the Text Encoding Initiative consortium and Humanistica committee. His work consistently emphasizes the connection between language, wellbeing, and economic empowerment in endangered language contexts.