Human language technology tools for indigenous South African languages and their potential use

Human language technology (HLT) contributes to the development of languages by providing various avenues through which languages can be interrogated. Through HLT, diverse questions can be raised and answered scientifically and objectively. In the context of South African indigenous languages (SAIL),...

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Main Authors: Respect Mlambo, Muzi Matfunjwa
Format: Article
Language:Afrikaans
Published: AOSIS 2025-01-01
Series:Literator
Subjects:
Online Access:https://literator.org.za/index.php/literator/article/view/2049
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author Respect Mlambo
Muzi Matfunjwa
author_facet Respect Mlambo
Muzi Matfunjwa
author_sort Respect Mlambo
collection DOAJ
description Human language technology (HLT) contributes to the development of languages by providing various avenues through which languages can be interrogated. Through HLT, diverse questions can be raised and answered scientifically and objectively. In the context of South African indigenous languages (SAIL), several HLT tools support these languages. However, it seems that some language users are unaware of the availability and capabilities of these tools, which contributes to their underutilisation. This study aims to identify and describe briefly some of the HLT tools that support and analyse SAIL. It presents an overview of the open access HLT tools, namely part-of-speech (POS) taggers, morphological decomposers (MDs), morphological analysers (MAs), isiZulu.net, ZulMorph and Google Translate (GT). These tools are crucial in analysing and understanding SAIL, as well as for advancing these languages in the field of HLT. In this study, the researchers anticipate that by raising awareness of the existence of these tools, more users of indigenous languages will be eager to use them. Contribution: This study fills the practical gap in the use of HLT to perform linguistic functions for SAIL. It seems that there is underutilisation of existing HLT tools for SAIL, which might be attributed to language users being unaware of these tools. Therefore, the study aims to identify and describe some HLT tools that support and analyse SAIL. It presents an overview of the open access HLT tools, namely POS taggers, MD, MA, isiZulu.net, ZulMorph and GT. The researchers intend to demonstrate the use of these tools and to raise awareness about their existence.
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publishDate 2025-01-01
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spelling doaj-art-077c357948e84e7ba97f486b6ed751562025-02-11T13:25:43ZafrAOSISLiterator0258-22792219-82372025-01-01461e1e1110.4102/lit.v46i1.20491447Human language technology tools for indigenous South African languages and their potential useRespect Mlambo0Muzi Matfunjwa1South African Centre for Digital Language Resources, Faculty of Humanities, North-West University, PotchefstroomSouth African Centre for Digital Language Resources, Faculty of Humanities, North-West University, PotchefstroomHuman language technology (HLT) contributes to the development of languages by providing various avenues through which languages can be interrogated. Through HLT, diverse questions can be raised and answered scientifically and objectively. In the context of South African indigenous languages (SAIL), several HLT tools support these languages. However, it seems that some language users are unaware of the availability and capabilities of these tools, which contributes to their underutilisation. This study aims to identify and describe briefly some of the HLT tools that support and analyse SAIL. It presents an overview of the open access HLT tools, namely part-of-speech (POS) taggers, morphological decomposers (MDs), morphological analysers (MAs), isiZulu.net, ZulMorph and Google Translate (GT). These tools are crucial in analysing and understanding SAIL, as well as for advancing these languages in the field of HLT. In this study, the researchers anticipate that by raising awareness of the existence of these tools, more users of indigenous languages will be eager to use them. Contribution: This study fills the practical gap in the use of HLT to perform linguistic functions for SAIL. It seems that there is underutilisation of existing HLT tools for SAIL, which might be attributed to language users being unaware of these tools. Therefore, the study aims to identify and describe some HLT tools that support and analyse SAIL. It presents an overview of the open access HLT tools, namely POS taggers, MD, MA, isiZulu.net, ZulMorph and GT. The researchers intend to demonstrate the use of these tools and to raise awareness about their existence.https://literator.org.za/index.php/literator/article/view/2049human language technologypart-of-speech taggermorphological decomposermorphological analyserzulmorphisizulu.netgoogle translate.
spellingShingle Respect Mlambo
Muzi Matfunjwa
Human language technology tools for indigenous South African languages and their potential use
Literator
human language technology
part-of-speech tagger
morphological decomposer
morphological analyser
zulmorph
isizulu.net
google translate.
title Human language technology tools for indigenous South African languages and their potential use
title_full Human language technology tools for indigenous South African languages and their potential use
title_fullStr Human language technology tools for indigenous South African languages and their potential use
title_full_unstemmed Human language technology tools for indigenous South African languages and their potential use
title_short Human language technology tools for indigenous South African languages and their potential use
title_sort human language technology tools for indigenous south african languages and their potential use
topic human language technology
part-of-speech tagger
morphological decomposer
morphological analyser
zulmorph
isizulu.net
google translate.
url https://literator.org.za/index.php/literator/article/view/2049
work_keys_str_mv AT respectmlambo humanlanguagetechnologytoolsforindigenoussouthafricanlanguagesandtheirpotentialuse
AT muzimatfunjwa humanlanguagetechnologytoolsforindigenoussouthafricanlanguagesandtheirpotentialuse