  In recent years, the natural language processing (NLP) community has given
increased attention to the disparity of efforts directed towards high-resource
languages over low-resource ones. Efforts to remedy this delta often begin with
translations of existing English datasets into other languages. However, this
approach ignores that different language communities have different needs. We
consider a group of low-resource languages, Creole languages. Creoles are both
largely absent from the NLP literature, and also often ignored by society at
large due to stigma, despite these languages having sizable and vibrant
communities. We demonstrate, through conversations with Creole experts and
surveys of Creole-speaking communities, how the things needed from language
technology can change dramatically from one language to another, even when the
languages are considered to be very similar to each other, as with Creoles. We
discuss the prominent themes arising from these conversations, and ultimately
demonstrate that useful language technology cannot be built without involving
the relevant community.
