Revitalizing, Preserving, and Promoting Endangered Liberian Languages

A passionate community of language advocates dedicated to collaborating to preserve and promote Liberian Languages.

With a collective commitment to cultural and language education and preservation, LIBELP brings together individuals who share a common goal: ensuring every Liberian language thrive for generation to come.

July 26 Celebration. We would like to thank everyone who promoted Liberian Languages during the July 26 celebration by purchasing and wearing our T-shirts.

Here are some of the July 26 photos from our supporters. If you bought a T-shirt and would like to be featured on our page, please message us.

First Publicly Available Dataset on Liberian Languages

We are excited to announce that for the first time, we have published a dataset on the Kpelle language, which will serve as a template for all Liberian languages. Interestingly enough, our paper will be presented at the AfricanNLP 2025 event in Vienna, Austria. The AfricaNLP workshop is core event for the African NLP community and has drawn global attendance and interest for researchers working on African languages, African corpora, and tasks with importance in the African context. 

In the current landscape, large language models (LLMs) have seen widespread use and significant innovation, yet African languages remain underrepresented. To address this disparity, the theme for the 2025 workshop is “Multilingual and Multicultural-aware LLMs.” The workshop aspires to bring together a diverse group of researchers to explore solutions, collaborations, and innovation around enhancing LLMs’ capabilities in African languages and ensuring cultural awareness in their applications.

Abstract of the Kpelle dataset paper

In this paper, we introduce the first publicly available English-Kpelle dataset for machine translation, comprising over 2,000 sentence pairs drawn from everyday communication, religious texts, and educational materials. By fine-tuning Meta’s No Language Left Behind (NLLB) model on two versions of the dataset, we achieved BLEU scores of up to 30 in the Kpelle-to-English direction, demonstrating the benefits of data augmentation. Our findings align with NLLB-200 benchmarks on other African languages, underscoring Kpelle’s potential for competitive performance despite its low-resource status. Beyond machine translation, this dataset enables broader NLP tasks, including speech recognition and language modeling. We conclude with a roadmap for future dataset expansion, emphasizing orthographic consistency, community-driven validation, and interdisciplinary collaboration to advance inclusive language technology development for Kpelle and other low-resourced Mande languages. Read more about the paper here.

our official Launch Program

During the official launch of the Liberia Endangered Language Project (LIBELP), a non-profit initiative dedicated to revitalizing, preserving, and promoting Liberia’s sixteen endangered Indigenous languages. This landmark event took place on March 15, 2025, at the University Capitol Hill Auditorium, Monrovia, Liberia, starting at 10:00 AM.

Photos from our Launch Program

Photos from our Launch Program

Photos from our Launch Program

Welcome to Liberia, Theresa

Theresa from the KPOMA Women and one of our students from the Untied States who has been learning the Kpelle language visited Liberia. During her week-long vacation in Liberia, she met her teacher, Aaron and they had a short conversation.

When you know how your work makes a difference, you feel energized to contribute more.

Gola Class in Bomi County

Gola is one of the Endangered languages in Liberia. A photo of kids from a Gola class in Garngama Town, Tehr District, Bomi County.

Thanks to Mr. Dugbayor Q. Russell and his incredible team for teaching these kids their mother tongue. At LIBELP, we remain committed to saving Endangered Languages and empowering lifelong language learners.

When you know how your work makes a difference, you feel energized to contribute more.

A supportive experience that turns learning into community

At LIBELP, we believe in the power of the community to positively impact the preservation of their languages. Join our collaborative network of language and culture lovers dedicated to promoting Liberian languages and rich culture and heritage.

Language Education

We focus on teaching languages and their cultural contexts to celebrate and sustain Liberia’s linguistic heritage.

Content Creation

We produce videos, audio, graphics, and blog posts on various social media platforms to make language learning engaging and widely accessible.

Research

We explore the history and linguistic essence of each Liberian language, leveraging AI technology for documentation and dissemination.

Mobile Application Development

We work with expert developers to provide innovative tools for easy access to Liberian languages, enabling translation and learning anytime, anywhere.

To lose a language is to lose a part of yourself, a part of your soul, and part of your identity. Language and culture are intertwined, each shaping the other, and together, they form the foundation of who we are”

LIBELP

One of the primary objectives at LIBELP isn’t to neglect standard English but to empower every Liberian to learn and confidently speak their native language in any setting, instilling a sense of pride and connection to their roots

Jackson Weako, PhD

Testimonials

“Through LIBELP, gaining access to resources and a supportive community has instilled a sense of pride in my identity. My teacher is very kind, patient and understanding. With his help, I’ve accelerated my learning. Consistent development of my language skills through classes has equipped me with the knowledge to read short Kpelle books, participate in basic conversation and write my own stories. I know the ancestors smile down on me during class.”

— Aaliyah, Canada

“I have been taking Kpelle lessons for about two months, and I’m really excited about the progress I’ve made. The structure of each lesson is outstanding. The curriculum was thoughtfully designed, progressively building upon each lesson to ensure a solid foundation before moving on to more complex concepts. My instructor is incredibly knowledgeable and passionate about teaching. His enthusiasm makes the learning process both enjoyable and engaging. The course times have been very flexible, so fitting them into my schedule has been easy.”

— Theresa, USA

“As someone passionate about the Kissi language, the online lessons have been a game-changer. I can fit my studies around my schedule and still make significant progress. It’s empowering to learn and preserve our linguistic heritage.”

— Ivan Saah, USA

“LIBELP was something I was truly looking for. It has helped me gain a sense of identity and more self-confidence. I feel closer to my people and the culture. I appreciate resources like LIBELP available to the community to educate people like me and continue the history where our ancestors left off. The lessons were not as difficult as I thought. I was intimidated at first, but my teacher was patient and understanding. With grace, I learned so much, and it felt natural. I’m satisfied with the progress and experience I’ve gained throughout the Kpelle course. I appreciate the hard work behind the scenes to make this possible. I will gladly learn more in the future with LIBELP and definitely will recommend it to family and friends!.”

— Monjue, USA

“The Kpelleh Project has provided an amazing learning experience. My teachers are knowledgeable, patient, and encouraging. I particularly appreciate the organization’s commitment to research and curricular development. The lessons are rigorous and carefully planned, yet allow enough flexibility to respond to my (many!) questions and to adapt to my learning goals”

— Sarah, USA

“The quality is outstanding, and the attention to detail is impressive. I’ll definitely be back for more.”

— Crystal, Barbados