Dehradun, Oct. 23 -- Chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami on Thursday launched a voice collection portal for Garhwali, Kumaoni and Jaunsari under the 'Bhasha AI' initiative of the AI Strategic Engineering (AiSE) Foundation, seeking to integrate Uttarakhand's folk languages with Artificial Intelligence (AI) and help preserve and promote them on digital platforms. The campaign was launched at the chief minister's camp office with a voice clip recorded by Dhami in Kumaoni. The initiative aims to create a repository of words, pronunciations, voices and speaking styles in the three regional languages so that AI-based technologies can eventually understand and communicate in them. Calling languages and dialects an important part of the state's identity, Dhami said modern technology would be "crucial for preserving Uttarakhand's folk languages, folk arts, culture and traditions". He said it is important to ensure that regional languages were also adapted to emerging technologies. "Languages and dialects are our identity," he said, emphasising that the linguistic heritage of Uttarakhand should be taken to digital and global platforms through technology. Dhami said the state government wanted people living in even the "remotest villages and regions to be able to access information about government schemes in their native languages and communicate their concerns to the government using the same languages"....