AfLaT.org - African Language Technology

Swahili speech corpus compatible with Sphinx 4

Shadrack — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 19:36:27 +0000

I am currently working on a ASR project using SPhinx 4 however to date i havent gotten any corpus on the dialect that satisfies this. ill be glad if anyone can come to my aid.
Shadrack

POS tag set and annotation of West African languages

Iris — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 15:20:39 +0000

Hi,

We plan to create and annotate a corpus of an African/Portuguese creole language, and we also want to assign Ppart-of-speech-tags.

We would like to have look at POS-tag sets for similar languages as an example.
As the language has familiarities with West-African languages, from the Niger-Congo region, (for example Yoruba), could anybody help me find a description or examples of a POS-tag set for such a language?

Best regards,

Iris Hendrickx

https://www.clul.ul.pt

Need name of these trees in Yoruba

akinz — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 21:02:15 +0000

There members,i would like to know the names of the folowing Trees in Yoruba language in Nigeria.The trees are:OAK and MAPPLE.
The picuture of this tree are attached to this post.I would be very happy to receive your response soon.
Thanks

Google is hiring Language Specialists in South Africa!

mrozinska — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 16:32:13 +0000

The roles: Language Specialist IsiZulu & Language Specialist Afrikaans - Johannesburg or Nairobi

This is a 6 months role.

As a part of Localization Team you will help to shape Google’s voice in the language you know the best.

As a Language Specialist in this fast moving environment, you will be in charge of making Google’s products accessible, useful and fun in your native country and language. Additionally, you will drive linguistic quality by working closely with Google's translation vendors & search quality teams. If you are an experienced IsiZulu or Afrikaans translator with a technical, creative, marketing or localization background then this role could be perfect for you.

Responsibilities:
- Create and maintain a language style guides.
- Translate the product glossaries and edit UI, help, and marketing content.
- Review the language of existing translated material.
- Assure the linguistic quality of localized product builds.
- Adapt translation training program in volunteer translators.

Requirements:
- Strong linguistic capabilities and understanding of how to develop terminology.
- Computing background. Proficient using word processors and spreadsheets.
- Good knowledge of where to find parallel English-Isizulu or English-Afrikaans corpora a plus.
- Experience as a translator/interpreter a plus.
- Fluent in written English and IsiZulu or Afrikaans

For immediate consideration, please send a text (ASCII) or HTML version of your resume to mrozinska [at] google [dot] com.

xmllint bug affecting some African languages (a chance for community pressure)

bansp — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 17:17:58 +0000

Hi All,

Those of us who meddle with XML for Language Technology and happen to use the xmllint parser may already know that it can't handle the so-called "primary language tag" in the @xml:lang attribute set to anything else but a two-letter code (one of the old ISO-639-1 language codes). This means that you can validate e.g. Southern Sotho documents with @xml:lang="st", but you can't validate Northern Sotho documents with @xml:lang="nso".

This is a bug in the parser, reported here:

https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=606592

If this bug has a chance to affect you, you might want to register with the Gnome bugzilla and add your address to the CC list (this is an equivalent of voting. Of course, submitting a patch would be the optimal solution, but sometimes community pressure alone works wonders.

Cheers,

Piotr

Localization of African Languages

waiganjo — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 17:33:57 +0000

For advancement in certain domains of Language technologies, localization is important. This ought to be done before we can venture into HLT applications. Visit https://www.africanlocalisation.net.
Many countries are not supporting language localization issues. Why is this the case? Which countries have?

Translation from English into Fulah and Kulango

Trans — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 03:36:16 +0000

Dear Sir/Madam,
Trans Infopreneur Inc. is India's leading translation company. We currently have a 700
words immigration document to be translated from English into fol. African languages:

01. Kulango (Kolango) - 750 words for translation
02. Fulah (Fulani) - 200 words for translation.

Pl. let us know if you know of translators in these languages. If so, pl. do send their contact details.

Delivery: within two days of confirmation of order.

Payment terms: 30 days from date of invoice by Moneybookers. We typically pay lot earlier
than the 30 days deadline.

Pl. visit our website for our company profile.

Thanks

Ashok Bagri (Mr.)
Trans Infopreneur Inc.
Managing Partner
'KSL Kantoor'
Site no. 01, 445/1, Outpost Police Station Road
(Off Kodagehalli Main Road), Sahakaranagar,
Bangalore - 560092, INDIA

Phone: +91-80-41735185/6/7 extension: 22 and 23
Fax: +91-80-41735188
Email: transinfo [at] airtelmail [dot] in
Website: www.transinfopreneur.com
Thanks

Thanks

Ashok Bagri
Trans Infopreneur Inc.
Managing Partner
'KSL Kantoor'
Site no. 01, 445/1, Outpost Police Station Road
(Off Kodagehalli Main Road), Sahakaranagar,
Bangalore - 560092, INDIA

Phone: +91-80-41735185/6/7 extension: 22 and 23
Fax: +91-80-41735188
Email: transinfo [at] airtelmail [dot] in
Website: www.transinfopreneur.com

Thanks

Ashok Bagri
Trans Infopreneur Inc.
Managing Partner
'KSL Kantoor'
Site no. 01, 445/1, Outpost Police Station Road
(Off Kodagehalli Main Road), Sahakaranagar,
Bangalore - 560092, INDIA

Phone: +91-80-41735185/6/7 extension: 22 and 23
Fax: +91-80-41735188
Email: transinfo [at] airtelmail [dot] in
Website: www.transinfopreneur.com

Creating African language corpora using SIL Doulos characters

Metaglossia — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 07:34:32 +0000

How do you create language corpora using SIL Doulos characters that are not found on QWERTY and AZERTY keyboards?

Are all languages equal? Should minority languages be protected by law in Africa? by Innocent Maja

Vamaja — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 16:22:22 +0000

My personal philosophy regarding language rights is threefold namely:

1. All languages are equal in worth. They deserve the same level of protection.
2. Endangered minority languages should particularly be protected in Africa because they are very important to the language speaker and to the society as a whole.
3. Legal protection of languages will enable language speakers to assert their rights in the event of discrimination and forced linguistic assimilation.

What are your thoughts?

Resource-scarce vs low-resourced vs less-resourced?

gbvh — Sat, 24 Mar 2007 20:28:49 +0000

Hi Everyone!

Recently, there was a dicussion about the differences between the above-mentioned concepts on some or other list. I thought it was on CorporaList, but can't find anything in their archives.

Does anyone here have an idea where I can look for the discussion thread?

Your help is appreciated!

Yours,
Gerhard