Joseph Erb, a Cherokee animator and educator, has played a significant role in advancing Indigenous language representation in technology and the arts. More than two decades ago, Erb created the first animation in the Cherokee language, “The Beginning They Told,” which tells a story about the formation of the Appalachian and Rocky Mountains through Cherokee folklore. The film’s impact led Erb to return to Oklahoma after completing his Masters of Fine Arts at the University of Pennsylvania, where he declined an Ivy League teaching position to work with his own community.
“I wanted to go home and teach my community how to tell stories through animation,” said Erb.
Erb began teaching animation and storytelling to Cherokee and Muscogee Creek students using stop motion techniques due to limited access to computers. His approach encouraged students to share and animate Cherokee stories collectively.
In the late 2000s, Erb was instrumental in efforts to include the Cherokee language on major technology platforms. He facilitated meetings between Cherokee Nation representatives and technology companies, resulting in the Cherokee language being added to Apple’s iPhone OS in 2010. It later became available on Google and Microsoft platforms as well. “We were initially rejected by Microsoft for not having enough speakers of the language,” Erb said. “So we went to talk to Apple around the end of 2007.” He described the process as extensive, involving teams of community volunteers translating more than a million words.
Erb’s artistic contributions extend beyond language technology. He has illustrated children’s books about Indigenous culture and created sculptures such as “Indigenous Brilliance,” a digital illustration on copper panels displayed at the First Americans Museum in Oklahoma. For this work, he received the “Creative Native” award at the museum’s annual Tribal Nations gala in 2022.
Colleagues highlight Erb’s influence at UC Santa Cruz (UCSC), where he joined the film and digital media department in 2022. John Brown Childs, a distinguished emeritus professor at UCSC, said, “He’s a model for positive interaction… his words and deeds. And the students really get that, and the colleagues who know him — we all love him, he’s very generous with the sharing of his knowledge and expertise.”
Erb has also supported language revitalization efforts for other Indigenous communities, including assisting the Massachusett tribe’s language committee.
Celine Parreñas Shimizu, former Dean of the Arts at UCSC, noted Erb’s community-focused mission: “He said, ‘I don’t do my research for myself. I do it for the Cherokee people.’” She emphasized that his scholarship serves the community and helps keep Indigenous cultures visible and relevant.
UCSC is recognized as a center for research on language and artificial intelligence (AI). Matthew Wagers, chair of the linguistics department, leads a project across six University of California campuses aimed at increasing diversity in language technology research. The project seeks to address biases in AI language models by including a wider range of languages and speaking patterns representative of California’s multilingual population.
Wagers acknowledged Erb’s work as an example of expanding language access through technology. He explained that technological tools like keyboards adapted for Cherokee help speakers use their language in digital spaces. “We live our lives online and through technology now, and if we simultaneously want to live our lives in the language of our community or of our family and heritage, there has to be an effort to bridge this gap,” Wagers said.
Erb described the technical challenges of adapting Cherokee for digital use, including creating a keyboard for its 86-character syllabary and developing new terms for modern concepts like email. He noted that future goals include improving voice-to-text technology for Cherokee, which presents additional difficulties due to its tonal nature.
Reflecting on his career, Erb expressed optimism about increased tools and recognition for Indigenous languages. “Our language is still in decline, but we have more tools than we used to when I started,” he said. He added that technological progress has made it easier for creators to produce content in Cherokee. “Today, our filmmakers and bookmakers and writers can type in our language,” he said. “It ultimately preserves the inherent, important knowledge therein.”
