Building Collaboration-based Resources in Endowed African Languages: Case of NTeALan Dictionaries Platform

Elvis Mboning Tchiaze, Jean Marc Bassahak, Daniel Baleba, Ornella Wandji, Jules Assoumou


Abstract
In a context where open-source NLP resources and tools in African languages are scarce and dispersed, it is difficult for researchers to truly fit African languages into current algorithms of artificial intelligence. Created in 2017, with the aim of building communities of voluntary contributors around African native and/or national languages, cultures, NLP technologies and artificial intelligence, the NTeALan association has set up a series of web collaborative platforms intended to allow the aforementioned communities to create and administer their own lexicographic resources. In this article, we present on the one hand the first versions of the three platforms: the REST API for saving lexicographical resources, the dictionary management platform and the collaborative dictionary platform; on the other hand, we describe the data format chosen and used to encapsulate our resources. After experimenting with a few dictionaries and some users feedback, we are convinced that only collaboration-based approach and platforms can effectively respond to the production of good resources in African native and/or national languages.
Anthology ID:
2020.rail-1.9
Volume:
Proceedings of the first workshop on Resources for African Indigenous Languages
Month:
May
Year:
2020
Address:
Marseille, France
Editors:
Rooweither Mabuya, Phathutshedzo Ramukhadi, Mmasibidi Setaka, Valencia Wagner, Menno van Zaanen
Venue:
RAIL
SIG:
Publisher:
European Language Resources Association (ELRA)
Note:
Pages:
51–56
Language:
English
URL:
https://aclanthology.org/2020.rail-1.9
DOI:
Bibkey:
Cite (ACL):
Elvis Mboning Tchiaze, Jean Marc Bassahak, Daniel Baleba, Ornella Wandji, and Jules Assoumou. 2020. Building Collaboration-based Resources in Endowed African Languages: Case of NTeALan Dictionaries Platform. In Proceedings of the first workshop on Resources for African Indigenous Languages, pages 51–56, Marseille, France. European Language Resources Association (ELRA).
Cite (Informal):
Building Collaboration-based Resources in Endowed African Languages: Case of NTeALan Dictionaries Platform (Mboning Tchiaze et al., RAIL 2020)
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PDF:
https://aclanthology.org/2020.rail-1.9.pdf