mms-1b-itelmen-fold1

MMS-1B Fine-tuned for Itelmen Language (Fold 1 - Best Model)

Model Description

This model is a fine-tuned version of facebook/mms-1b-all for Itelmen language automatic speech recognition (ASR).

Itelmen is a critically endangered language spoken in the Kamchatka Peninsula, Russia, with approximately 100 speakers remaining (UNESCO classification: "Critically Endangered").

Performance

This is the best-performing fold from 3-fold cross-validation:

• CER (Character Error Rate): 5.23% ✨
• Training: Experiment 5, Fold 1/3
• Baseline (Pilot experiment): 28.54%
• Improvement: -23.31 percentage points (81.7% relative improvement)

Comparison

Training Details

Dataset

• Total samples: 360 audio samples
• Total duration: ~18 minutes
• Speakers: 9 native speakers
• Text encoding: IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet)
• Data split: Speaker-independent 3-fold cross-validation

Training Configuration

• Base model: facebook/mms-1b-all (1.4B parameters)
• Fine-tuning method: Full fine-tuning (all parameters)
• Training epochs: 57 (early stopped at epoch 54)
• Best checkpoint: epoch 54
• Batch size: 16 (effective)
• Learning rate: 3e-5
• Optimizer: AdamW with weight decay
• Hardware: NVIDIA T600 (4GB VRAM)
• Training time: ~3 days per fold

Data Augmentation

• Speed perturbation (0.9x, 1.1x) - training data only
• SpecAugment: Time masking

Usage

Using transformers

from transformers import Wav2Vec2ForCTC, Wav2Vec2Processor
import torchaudio

# Load model and processor
model_name = "sut0/mms-1b-itelmen-fold1"
processor = Wav2Vec2Processor.from_pretrained(model_name)
model = Wav2Vec2ForCTC.from_pretrained(model_name)

# Load audio
audio, sr = torchaudio.load("path/to/audio.wav")
if sr != 16000:
    resampler = torchaudio.transforms.Resample(sr, 16000)
    audio = resampler(audio)

# Transcribe
inputs = processor(audio.squeeze(), sampling_rate=16000, return_tensors="pt", padding=True)
with torch.no_grad():
    logits = model(inputs.input_values).logits

predicted_ids = torch.argmax(logits, dim=-1)
transcription = processor.batch_decode(predicted_ids)[0]
print(transcription)

Using Hugging Face Space

Try the model live at: Itelmen ASR Demo

Limitations and Biases

Limitations

• Small dataset: Only 360 samples (~18 minutes) due to language endangerment
• Limited speakers: 9 speakers may not cover full phonetic variability
• Single fold: This is a single-fold model from 3-fold cross-validation
  • A 3-fold averaged model will be released after all folds complete
  • May have lower generalization than the final ensemble
• Domain: Trained on conversational/narrative speech
• IPA transcription: Uses International Phonetic Alphabet, not Cyrillic script

Performance Notes

• CER 5.23% is calculated on this fold's validation set
• Cross-fold performance may vary (Fold 0: 9.40%, Fold 1: 5.23%)
• Real-world performance on unseen speakers may differ

Training Procedure

Phase 7-4: Full-scale Experiment

This model is part of a systematic hyperparameter search experiment:

• Experiment ID: 5
• Search strategy: Random search across 49 trials
• Current trial: 1/49
• Fold: 1/3 (completed)

Preprocessing

1. Audio resampling to 16kHz
2. Text normalization (lowercase, IPA preservation)
3. Audio augmentation (speed perturbation on training data)

Training

• Architecture: Wav2Vec2 + CTC (Connectionist Temporal Classification)
• Loss function: CTC loss
• Decoding: Greedy decoding
• Early stopping: Patience of 3 epochs
• Metric for best model: CER

Intended Use

Primary Use Cases

1. Language documentation: Transcribing Itelmen language recordings
2. Educational tools: Supporting language learning and preservation
3. Research: Low-resource ASR methodology development

Out-of-Scope Use

• Commercial speech recognition (insufficient robustness)
• High-stakes applications (medical, legal) without human verification
• Other languages (trained specifically for Itelmen)

Ethical Considerations

Language Preservation

This project aims to support the preservation and documentation of Itelmen, a critically endangered language. All training data was collected with appropriate permissions and cultural sensitivity.

Data Privacy

• Training data: Publicly available or appropriately licensed recordings
• No personally identifiable information in model outputs

Citation

If you use this model, please cite:

@misc{itelmen-asr-fold1-2025,
  title={MMS-1B Fine-tuned for Itelmen Language ASR (Fold 1)},
  author={sut0},
  year={2025},
  publisher={Hugging Face},
  howpublished={\url{https://huggingface.co/sut0/mms-1b-itelmen-fold1}}
}

Acknowledgments

• Base model: Meta AI's MMS project
• Language resources: Harvard Itelmen Language Project
• Community: Itelmen language speakers and cultural preservation efforts

Model Card Authors

sut0

Model Card Contact

For questions or feedback, please open an issue on the Space repository.

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Project: Itelmen ASR System Phase: 7-4 (Full-scale Experiment) Created: December 2025 Last Updated: December 23, 2025 Status: ✅ Fold 1 completed | ⏳ Fold 2 in progress | ⏳ Fold 3 pending