Missions

The high-level goal of the ELRA-LRL TC is to support the maintenance of linguistic diversity through technology and ICT. Since language resources and technologies represent a key component for any language-based technology, this special interest group intends to focus on the particular needs and requirements of less-resourced languages. To this end, it aims at creating a community that:

a) aims at overcoming the challenges of LRTs development for minority languages;
b) actively engages in defining an agenda for rapid and effective development of LRTs for minority languages;
c) is committed to documenting language resources so as to allow sharing of existing tools and resources;
d) is willing to share and spread knowledge about experience, best practices and standards for LRT documentation, representation and development;
e) explores techniques for evaluation of LRTs for less-resourced languages;
f) promotes development and distribution of reusable components (data, models and tools).

Planned Activities

• Ensure and promote the use of the LRE Map and the Language Matrices as instruments for documenting, searching and sharing knowledge of available LRTs for less resourced languages; show best tools and resources; monitor usability of existing resources over a range of different tools and application domains;

• Provide Education and Training on resource documentation, archiving and distribution

• Establish an agenda for rapidly and effectively providing minority languages with the necessary resources so that their speaker communities can enjoy equal rights in the digital domain.

• Offer guidance and training related to the above activities

• Create a forum for the discussion of principles, case studies, business models, and best practices for developing resources for minority languages;

• Promote collaboration among developers of LRTs for less-resourced languages;

• Support student participation in the less-resourced languages community;

• Endorse high-quality workshops in the area of less-resourced languages that are deemed likely to further these purposes

• Network with researchers in neighboring disciplines that have an interest in LRTs for less-resourced languages (e.g., documentary linguistics, language preservation and revitalization, language planning, etc.)

• Organise a worskhop every two years (co-located with LREC)

• Liaise with relevant institutions and initiatives in the field of LRL to promote cooperation.

Through this initiative, ELRA reasserts its active involvement in contributing to enhance the support for the languages with little or no technological support.

Convenor: Claudia Soria, ILC-CNR

Technical Committee:

• Laurent Besacier, LIG-IMAG
• Khalid Choukri, ELRA/ELDA
• Thierry Declerck, DFKI
• Valérie Mapelli, ELRA/ELDA
• Vera Ferreira, CIDLES
• Mikel Forcada, Universitat d'Alacant
• John Judge, ADAPT DCU
• Joseph Mariani, LIMSI-CNRS