New resources for Welsh communication infrastructure

During 2015-16, the Language Technologies Unit team, based at Canolfan Bedwyr, 黑料不打烊, developed new resources to enable communication in Welsh with computers and digital devices. This is a technology which is becoming increasingly prevalent as the human voice is used more and more for question and answer systems on mobile phones and tablets, and voice control for such things as television sets, robots and dictation systems. If Welsh cannot be used in these environments, then the language will be excluded from the digital world and Welsh speakers will have no choice but to speak English with these devices.

In order to pave the way for new Welsh medium technologies, the Welsh government and S4C have funded the innovative Welsh Communications Infrastructure project at 黑料不打烊. The project has produced a Welsh question and answer prototype, where a personal assistant 鈥淢acsen鈥� is able to answer questions such as what is the news or weather, and has also created an alpha version of a Welsh transcribing system, together with the acoustic models, language models, and corpus of spoken Welsh used to assist in their creation.

Dewi Bryn Jones, the project鈥檚 main software developer, explained that:

鈥淭he intention is to give free access to these resources through the National Language Technologies Portal, so that software developers, major international corporations and small local companies, coding clubs, hackers and anyone interested in creating Welsh software, can develop them further within their own software. All the data, the source code, usage notes and other useful information is stored within Github, a web-based repository used extensively by developers. We will also be holding a session on these resources at the 鈥淗acio鈥檙 Iaith鈥� language hacking event at Cardiff on the 16th of April, and we are very much looking forward to it.鈥�

One of the first people to be shown the 鈥楳acsen鈥� prototype was the Welsh First Minister, Carwyn Jones.

The First Minister said:

鈥淚鈥檓 glad to see the Welsh Government鈥檚 support contributing to an important infrastructure project like this. In order for the Welsh language to continue to flourish as a contemporary language, it鈥檚 clear that it needs to adapt and contribute to as many elements of modern life as possible. Producing a wide range of technology and devices that are able to understand and communicate in Welsh is central to this.鈥�

The system has also been shown to pupils at Ysgol Uwchradd Bodedern, on Anglesey, in a session with Dr Cynog Prys from the School of Social Sciences, 黑料不打烊.

鈥淭he pupils loved it鈥� he said. 鈥淚n a world where technology is perceived to be something that belongs to the English language, it is very important that young people understand that it鈥檚 possible to have these devices using Welsh as well. It鈥檚 an important part of making sure that Welsh continues to flourish in the modern digital world.鈥�

These resources will be placed on the National Language Technologies Portal鈥檚 website: , as well as in other repositories for developers.

Publication date: 18 March 2016