The Language Technologies Unit is now ISO 27001:2013 certified

Cyber security is becoming increasingly important, as attacks on confidential data rise. The Language Technologies Unit is the first unit within Bangor University, and any other university in Wales, to be ISO 27001 certified. This certification is the international standard for information security, which sets out the specification for an information security management system (ISMS). By gaining the certification, public authorities, and others in Wales will be able to use the Unit’s products such as the Vocab plug-in [https://techiaith.cymru/cloud/widgets/vocab/?lang=en] on their websites with the confidence and knowledge that the risk of any outside attacks are minimized.

Many thanks to the University’s IT Services for their support and to ITGoverance for their excellent consultancy service and to Alcumus ISOQAR for conducting a successful and thorough auditing process.

Preben and Lenna win a major global competition with tech giant, Mozilla

Congratulations to Preben Vangberg and Leena Farhat, members of staff at the Language Technologies Unit and PhD students at Bangor University for winning a major global competition with tech giant, Mozilla’s Common Voice.

In June 2022, Mozilla announced a global competition, ‘Our Voices’. The task was to design a text-to-speech model tackling bias and furthering diversity and inclusion. After receiving submissions from around the world, the selecting panel announced the top four entries that scooped first place in each category, with Preben and Leena among the winners.

Their winning model is focused on the Swiss minority language Romansh and for the two major Romansh dialects (Sursilvan and Vallader). It was praised for its performance, small character error rate and valuable contribution to a lesser resourced language.

After graduating with an MSc in Language Technologies at Bangor University, both Leena and Preben currently work as part time research assistants at The Language Technologies Unit and are connected to the Unit’s work with Welsh Common Voice. All of their colleagues at the Unit are very proud of their success!

Read more: https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/blog/announcing-mozillas-common-voice-our-voices-competition-winners/

Temporary Assistant Terminologist Job

Another exciting opoptunity to join in our Language Technologies team, this time to specialize in Terminology Further details may be had here.

Research Seminar 27 October 2022 – “Race and Ethnicity Terminology.”

The second seminar in our Language and Language Technologies seminar series (2022-23) will be held at 3pm on Thursday 27th of October at the Duncan Tanner seminar room (39 College Road).

The invited speaker will be Professor Delyth Prys from the Language Technologies Unit, her talk is titled “Race and Ethnicity Terminology”. Professor Delyth Prys is chair of a Welsh Government group looking at suitable Welsh terminology to be used in relation to matters of race and ethnicity. This group includes Welsh speakers who are members of various ethnic communities in Wales and emphasizes the importance of terminology use which is acceptable for members of those communities. This seminar will therefore provide an opportunity to discuss some of those terms and to understand more about the consultation and decision-making process with regards to such terminology. The seminar will be held in Welsh, and a warm welcome is extended to learners.

Don’t forget about the cocktail hour between 4-5 pm following the event. Everyone is also welcome to attend, it’s a great opportunity to network, even if you can’t come to the seminar beforehand!

Research Seminar 29 September 2022 – ‘“BU-TTS: An Open-Source Bilingual Welsh-English, Text-to-Speech Corpus.”

Our monthly Language and Language Technologies seminar series will recommence for the new academic year at 3pm on Thursday 29th of September at the Duncan Tanner seminar room (39 College Road). Please note the change from the last Friday of the month to the last Thursday.

The invited speaker will be Stephen Russell from the Language Technologies Unit and his talk is titled “BU-TTS: An Open-Source Bilingual Welsh-English, Text-to-Speech Corpus”

The talk will be given in English however bilingual questions and discussions following the talk will be welcomed.

Don’t forget about the cocktail hour between 4-5 pm following the event. Everyone is also welcome to attend, it’s a great opportunity to network, even if you can’t come to the seminar beforehand!

Wales Academic Symposium on Language Technologies 2022

Registration open for the Wales Academic Symposium on Language Technologies 2022 https://symposiwm.bangor.ac.uk/registration
A lively symposium ahead, to be opened by Prof Georg Rehm @DFKI
International and Welsh guest speakers.  View the symposium  Programme https://symposiwm.bangor.ac.uk/programme

Language and Technology in Wales : Volume 1

We’re delighted to announce the publication of the first volume of Language and Technology in Wales. It contains papers by many leading academics, providing an overview of recent research in Language Technologies in Wales.

Visit http://techiaith.cymru/books/ to view the ebook. A Welsh language version also exists at http://techiaith.cymru/llyfrau/.

KESS MRes Scholarship

Another amazing opportunity to work towards an Kess MRes with the Language Technologies Unit and the Linguistics Department.  More information here.

Machine Translation Developer Post

Another exciting opoptunity to join in our Language Technologies team, this time to specialize in machine translation. Further details may be had here.

BANGOR UNIVERSITY INTERNSHIP

Are you a Bangor University student looking for a paid internship with the Language Technologies Unit?
We have 2 internships available this year:

1. Helping with Y Termiadur Addysg standardized terminology dictionary (details here )
2. Improving Welsh automatic video subtitling (details here )
Both interships require fluency in Welsh.
More details about the internship scheme can be found here or email d.prys@bangor.ac.uk for further information.

Job Terminologist / Assistant Terminologist (Maternity cover)

Great opportunity to join Bangor University’s terminology team: temporary post to cover maternity leave . Further details may be had here.

Symposium and Technology and the Welsh language conference

We are happy to announce our Wales Symposium on Language Technologies https://symposiwm2020.bangor.ac.uk/en for 4 November this year.
Also, keep the date 26 February 2021 for our next Technology and the Welsh language conference http://techiaith.cymru/conferences/conference-2021/?lang=en

Software Engineer Post

We’re looking to hire an additional software engineer to join the Language Technologies Unit. This is a great opportunity to join an innovative team developing speech and language technology resources and components for Welsh. Further details may be had here.

First Call for Papers for Language Technologies Symposium, Bangor University, 18 September, 2020

t’s a pleasure to announce the first call for papers for our Language Technologies Symposium, Bangor University, 18 September, 2020. This is the first academic symposium in its field for researchers in Wales. A warm welcome all researchers, academics and students. http://symposiwm2020.bangor.ac.uk/en

KESS MRes Scholarship – Welsh Ontology of Family Law

This is a second advertisment for an MRes scholarship for a Welsh Ontology of Family Law, for which the ability to speak Welsh is essential. Full Story here

Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists honour three researchers from Bangor University

n a special award ceremony hosted by the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists (RCSLT) at Nottingham during their annual conference this year, Delyth Prys, Dewi Bryn Jones a Stefan Ghazzali from the Language Technologies Unit, Canolfan Bedwyr, were presented with a Giving Voice Award. Read the full story here.

Hands-on Workshop on the Language Technologies Portal

A practical workshop on how to make full use of the National Language Technologies Portal resources will be held at the National Library of Wales on 18 June 2019. This workshop will be run by the Language Technologies Unit and their Partners, and is funded by the ESRC Bangor University Impact Acceleration Fund.

This workshop is suitable for software developers, hackers, computer linguists, computing teachers, language technology volunteers, and all those interested in using portals resources in Welsh and multilingual computer products. Full details can be obtained here.

You can register for this event here.

KESS MRes Scholarship – Welsh Ontology of Family Law

This is an advertisment for an MRes scholarship for a Welsh Ontology of Family Law, for which the ability to speak Welsh is essential. Read the full story here.

Research by Canolfan Bedwyr’s Language Technologies Unit informs European agenda

Research and expertise by Canolfan Bedwyr’s Language Technologies Unit were referenced the European Parliament recently, as Plaid Cymru’s European MP, Jill Evans, credited the work of the Unit as being at the forefront of minority language technology. The MEP presented findings of the recommendations made by the Digital Language Diversity Project (DLDP) in its report on ensuring linguistic equality in the fields of digital technology. Following the speech by Jill Evans MEP, the head of the Language Technologies Unit, Delyth Prys, and the Unit’s Chief Software Engineer, Dewi Bryn Jones, were invited to speak at a conference on language technologies and digital equality within a multilingual Europe. Read the full story here.

Bangor University helps Mozilla with Welsh speech technology

Mozilla, the California-based international company responsible for the Firefox web browser, have just launched their international Common Voice project. After having started with English last year, three new languages are now being added, namely Welsh, German and French. Welsh succeeded in being amongst the first three thanks to the help of the Language Technologies Unit at Canolfan Bedwyr, Bangor University. Read the full story here.

Delyth wins Womenspire prize

Congratulations to Delyth Prys, the head of the Language Technologies Unit, on winning the Building Wales prize by Womenspire. Read the full story here.

Macsen gets more talkative

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is getting more intelligent by the day. By now many people in Wales have devices such as Alexa, Siri, and Google Now that can answer spoken questions about the weather, news, and other useful facts. They can even respond to a voice asking them to turn on the light, switch on the power, or similar skills. Unfortunately, these only work if spoken to in English, but we are a step nearer getting a similar system in Welsh with our own digital personal assistant Macsen, due to work done at Bangor University, aided by a grant from the Welsh Government. To begin with Macsen could only respond to simple commands, but now it can answer questions, and go to the most popular articles in the Welsh Wikipedia to find relevant information. It can read out the first paragraph of an article, or the news headings, using a Welsh synthetic voice.  Full details are available here.

Bangor University Internship

We have a new opportunity in the LTU for a Bangor University undergraduate to obtain a 150 hour internship btween February and May 2018 to transcribe more of the BBC’s substantial Welsh language archive. This is a brilliant opportunity for someone with an interest in transcription and language technology to increase their understanding of this field and work in an an interesting and stimulating environment. This post needs a student who is fluent in both oral and written Welsh. Full details are available here.

New Lleisiwr project

Thanks to grant aid from the Welsh Government, and in partnership with the Betsi Cadwaladr Health Board and the Health Service in Wales, we have just begun work on a new project to create synthetic Welsh language voices for people who are about to loose their speech capability due to surgery or medical condition. Full details are available here.

Eisteddfod Events

 This year for the first time, the Language Technologies Unit will exhibit in the Science and Technology Pavilion at the National Eisteddfod. Amongst the activities there, we will hold a Hacathon using our speech technology resources all day Saturday the 5^th of August. We will have new crossword puzzles on scientific terms every day, and there will be an opportunity to meet Macsen, our Welsh digital personal assistant prototype.

Indeg Williams, holder of the KESS PhD scholarship funded by the Welsh Government, who is researching Computational Models of Welsh for Speech Processing, will present on her work at the Welsh Government stall at 11 in the morning on the 8^th of August.

Come and see us during the week!

International Seminar on Terminology and Lexicography

On 4 September, we will be hosting an international seminar in Bangor University on the theme “Resources for Terminology and Lexicography: What we have and what we need”. We will have guest speakers from terminology centres and higher education institutions in Europe.  Read more

Welsh Technology in Support of the Economy

The second Technology and the Welsh Language conference was held by the Language Technologies Unit at Bangor University on the 20th of January 2017, and followed by Hacio’r Iaith on the 21st. This was a great opportunity for academics, policy leaders, and people from the public and private sectors to meet each other and hear about the latest developments in the field of digital technologies and the Welsh language. – Read more

Services to Bilingual Healthcare Awarded

A project to provide Welsh cautionary labels has won the prize for Services to Bilingual Healthcare  in the inaugural Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board Achievement Awards. The partners in the project were the Language Technologies Unit (LTU) at Canolfan Bedwyr and the Centre for Health Economics and Medicines Evaluation (CHEME) at Bangor University, together with the pharmacy team at Ysbyty Gwynedd. – Read more

Publication Date: 23/11/2016

Bangor Researcher joint winner of the BBC NewsHACK award