Kifuliiru Lab is a specialized Kifuliiru language preservation laboratory under Wekify LLC, dedicated to preserving and revitalizing the Kifuliiru language through content generation and digital platform development. Our research laboratory is founded and run by Ayivugwe Kabemba Mukome, a Kifuliiru language native speaker, ensuring authentic cultural and linguistic expertise at its core. We work directly with the Bafuliiru people of Ibufuliiru in Uvira, South Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo, to create comprehensive educational resources and develop digital platforms including Tabula Kifuliiru (web app contribution platform),Kifuliiru HQ (mobile app), Kifuliiru.com, and many other efforts.
"When a language dies, so much more than words are lost."
— Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass
Language is a "dwelling place of ideas" and a "prism through which to see the world." Its loss represents a loss of knowledge and ways of understanding. This is why our work at Kifuliiru Lab is so critical—we are not just preserving words, but safeguarding entire ways of knowing, thinking, and being.
Our mission is to transform the Kifuliiru language from minimal documentation to a comprehensive digital language ecosystem through systematic content generation and digital platform development. We combine template-based content generation, community-centered validation, and software engineering to produce educational materials at unprecedented scale.
Our vision extends beyond Kifuliiru: we are developing a language-agnostic methodologythat can be replicated across the estimated 3,000+ endangered languages globally, creating a scalable framework for language preservation. In the future, we plan to integrate advanced computational linguistics, AI, and machine learning technologies to further enhance our language preservation efforts.
Kifuliiru Lab employs a multi-faceted approach combining template-based content generation, digital platform development, and software engineering:
We employ mathematical formulas and linguistic templates to systematically generate content across multiple domains: lexical generation (vocabulary expansion), syntactic generation (sentence structures), semantic generation (content with appropriate meaning), and pedagogical generation (educational materials).
We develop and maintain digital platforms including Tabula Kifuliiru (web app contribution platform),Kifuliiru HQ (mobile app), Kifuliiru.com, and many other platforms that enable community engagement, content contribution, and language learning.
All generated content undergoes rigorous multi-stage validation including native speaker verification, elder cultural validation, and pedagogical review. This ensures both linguistic accuracy and cultural authenticity.
We apply software engineering best practices to build scalable web applications, mobile apps, and digital platforms that support language preservation and community engagement.
Currently, Kifuliiru Lab is actively engaged in content generation and digital platform development:
Our current work focuses on creating a solid foundation of content and digital infrastructure through data generation. The data and content we generate today will serve as training data for future research and development in computational linguistics, AI, and machine learning applications for language preservation.
Through our content generation efforts and software engineering expertise, Kifuliiru Lab has achieved:
These achievements demonstrate the effectiveness of combining template-based content generation, software development, and community-centered validation to preserve and revitalize endangered languages.
Kifuliiru Lab is uniquely positioned as a research laboratory founded and run by Ayivugwe Kabemba Mukome, a Kifuliiru language native speaker, ensuring that all research, development, and content creation is grounded in authentic linguistic and cultural knowledge from the very beginning.
Kifuliiru Lab currently focuses on:
Systematic content generation using mathematical formulas and linguistic templates for vocabulary expansion, sentence structures, and educational materials.
Full-stack software development, web applications (including Tabula Kifuliiru), mobile apps (Kifuliiru HQ), software engineering best practices, API development, and scalable system architecture for language preservation platforms.
Corpus construction, data organization, dataset preparation, quality assurance, and community validation processes.
As we build our content foundation and digital infrastructure, we plan to integrate advanced technologies in the future:
Future research will include morphological analysis, syntactic parsing, semantic representation, phonological modeling, corpus linguistics, and linguistic typology research for Bantu languages.
Future applications will explore neural language models, transformer architectures, transfer learning, few-shot learning, reinforcement learning, and deep learning for NLP applications and Kifuliiru AI development.
Future work will include advanced data annotation, machine learning model training, and statistical analysis for NLP research and AI system development.
Ayivugwe Kabemba Mukome leads Kifuliiru Lab as both founder and director, bringing together native language expertise, technical innovation, and community-centered research to preserve the Kifuliiru language.
Native speaker of Kifuliiru and member of the Bafuliiru people from Ibufuliiru in Uvira, South Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo. Deeply connected to the cultural and linguistic traditions that form the foundation of this preservation work.
Research Lead, Technical Lead, and Data Science specialist with expertise in computational linguistics, template-based content generation, and scalable methodology development for language preservation.
Leading the development of scalable methodologies that can be replicated across other endangered languages, creating a framework for community-centered language preservation.
Successfully transformed Kifuliiru from minimal documentation to a comprehensive digital ecosystem with 12+ platforms, 141,000+ projected educational materials, and community-validated content.
Learn more about our logo and its meaningful symbolism—how the K represents Kifuliiru language, and the sparkles represent our step-by-step journey in language preservation.
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