Huastec Speech to Text: Preserving a Mayan Language with AI

Where Huastec is Spoken

Huastec (self-name Tének) is a Mayan language spoken in the Huasteca region of east-central Mexico. The main communities are in the states of San Luis Potosí, Veracruz, and Tamaulipas, with smaller pockets in Hidalgo and Querétaro. With approximately 200,000 speakers, it is one of the larger indigenous languages of Mexico, but it is still considered endangered due to language shift to Spanish. The written form uses a Latin alphabet established in the 20th century, with a standard orthography promoted by the Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas (INALI).

Why Accurate Speech-to-Text Matters for Huastec

For a language with limited written resources, speech-to-text is a critical tool for language documentation and revitalization. Every recording of a Huastec elder telling a story, every community meeting, and every radio broadcast can be turned into a searchable, shareable text. This opens up possibilities for:

• Education: Creating bilingual textbooks and reading materials
• Preservation: Archiving oral histories in a durable format
• Accessibility: Adding subtitles to video content for deaf or hard-of-hearing Huastec speakers
• Research: Enabling linguists to analyze grammar and vocabulary from natural speech

The Challenges of Transcribing Huastec

1. Ejective and Glottalized Consonants

Huastec has a series of ejective stops (p', t', k', ts') and a glottal stop. These sounds are produced with a simultaneous glottal closure, giving them a distinct popping quality. Many ASR systems struggle because they are trained on languages without such sounds. Speechyou’s model is specifically trained to recognize these ejectives, ensuring words like k'akʼ (fire) are not confused with kak (hard).

2. Vowel Length and Tone

Vowel length is phonemic in Huastec: chak (red) vs. chaak (rain). Some dialects also use pitch to distinguish meaning. Standard speech recognition often ignores these features, but Speechyou analyzes both duration and pitch contours for accurate transcription.

3. Dialectal Variation

As mentioned, Western, Central, and Eastern Huastec differ in pronunciation, vocabulary, and even grammar. For example, the word for ‘water’ is haʼ in the west but jaʼ in the east. Speechyou can handle multiple dialects by offering a dialect selection option, improving accuracy for each speaker.

Use Cases in the Huastec Community

• Community Radio: Stations like Radio Tének in San Luis Potosí can transcribe their broadcasts to create a written archive and generate subtitles for online streaming.
• Language Classes: Teachers can record lessons and generate transcripts for students to read along.
• Oral History: Projects like the Archivo de la Palabra Tének use Speechyou to turn hours of interviews into searchable text.
• YouTube & Social Media: Huastec content creators can add SRT subtitles to videos, reaching both fluent speakers and learners.
• Legal & Medical: Interpreters in courts or clinics can produce accurate written records of spoken Huastec.

How Speechyou Helps

Speechyou is built to support low-resource languages like Huastec. Our model is trained on a diverse corpus of Huastec speech from different regions, and we continuously update it with new data. The platform is simple: upload audio or video, select “Huastec”, and get a transcript with timestamps. You can export as SRT or VTT for subtitles. The Solo plan gives you unlimited transcription, so there is no limit on how much you can transcribe.

Conclusion

Huastec is a living language with a rich history and a vibrant community. By providing accurate speech-to-text and subtitle generation, Speechyou helps ensure that Tének remains a language of the future, not just the past. Try it today and see how easy it is to transcribe Huastec audio.