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The innovative tool is designed by a Harvard undergraduate in Computer Science, Mr Matthew Nazari, himself a heritage speaker of Aramaic.

In past years, when students have proposed to conduct research in a language they already know, the department has required them to identify as either a “native” speaker or a “heritage” speaker.

It defines a native speaker as an applicant who has “spoken the language in question from earliest childhood and remains fluent” and defines a heritage speaker as a student “raised in a home where a non-English language is spoken” who “lacks native-level fluency.”

One of the “heritage” speaker applicants represented by the alliance, Samar Ahmad, had originally lost points on her application to conduct research in Arabic because she grew up speaking the language.