The West African linguistics society (WALS) has signed a partnership with obtranslate, a deep learning IT company, to standardize and preserve over 500 West African indigenous languages from extinction.
This is contained in a statement jointly signed on Thursday by, President of WALS, Prof. Lendzemo Yuka, and Mr Emmanuel Gabriel, the chief executive officer of obtranslate in Abuja.
The organizations had a memorandum of understanding (MoU) which will ensure they use artificial intelligence (AI) and machine translation (MT) to research on West African languages.
The areas to be explored in the research encompasses MT, AI, generative aI, and natural language processing (NLP).
They said the agreement is aimed at understanding the structure and characteristics of over 500 West African languages.
“This move will propel obtranslate researchers and scientists to improve its machine translation systems, speech recognition and natural language processing tools, specifically tailored to West African languages.
“This will help make these low-resourced West African languages more accessible on the obtranslate machine translation platform digitally,” it said.
Yuka, in the statement, said that the collaboration would enable the two organizations develop policies relating to language education, teaching of official/national languages and minority indigenous West African languages.
He further said that WALS through its events, always engage experts to chat the course on West African languages.
According to him, these events serve as a platform for researchers to present their findings, share insights and foster academic collaboration.
Gabriel on his part, emphasized that obtranslate and WALS are committed to ensuring that the West African language policy upholds language rights, protects linguistic minorities and promotes inclusivity.
“Both parties will consider policies for the use of languages in public administration, legal systems, media and cultural institutions.
“This partnership will drive openbinacle to set up more operation offices in 16 West African countries.
“This will enable us foster strong partnerships with more universities, promote collaborative research in machine translation, artificial intelligence, and generative AI.
“Jobs would be created for linguists and researchers,” he said.
He also said that raising awareness about the diversity of linguistics in West Africa, the importance of preserving and studying the indigenous or low-resourced languages, will ensure they don’t go extinct.
According to Gabriel, the partnership will be mutually beneficial, potentially advancing the study and preservation of languages in 16 West African countries.
obtranslate, also known as openbinacle translate, is a subsidiary of openbinacle group, a deep learning company that has developed an online computer assisted translation tool, neural machine translation (NMT), and AI platform for over 2,000 African and European languages.
The company is also aimed at bridging language barriers on the African continent and globally.
The WALS is a professional group of scholars, researchers, field workers and teachers who are accelerating the development of linguistics and linguistic study in the West African sub-region.
1 Comment
This is welcome development from the executive team. I believe the primary data for this project is readily available, because spoken and written language material is accessible from radio television stations and social media platform. The partners through the support agancies govt and nongovt organisation needs to involve rearchers.
I wonder if the society will work through its efforts or other interested group or individual towards University of Languages study.