(Dalle Molle Institute for Semantic and Cognitive Studies) is a research
laboratory attached to the University of Geneva, Switzerland, which conducts
basic and applied research in computational linguistics (CL), and artificial
intelligence (AI). The site gives a presentation of the ISSCO projects (European
projects, projects of the Swiss National Science Foundation, projects of the
French-speaking community, etc.).
Created by the Foundation Dalle Molle in 1972 for research into cognition and
semantics, ISSCO has come to specialize in natural language processing and, in
particular, in multilingual language processing, in a number of areas : machine
translation, linguistic environments, multilingual generation, discourse
processing, data collection, etc. The University of Geneva provides
administrative support and infrastructure for ISSCO. The research is funded
solely by grants and by contracts with public and private bodies.
ISSCO is multi-disciplinary and multi-national, "drawing its staff and its
visitors from the disciplines of computer science, linguistics, mathematics,
psychology and philosophy. The long-term staff of the Institute is relatively
small in number; with a much larger number of visitors coming for stays ranging
from a month to two years. This ensures a continual exchange of ideas and
encourages flexibility of approach amongst those associated with the Institute."
The International Conferences on Computational Linguistics (COLINGs) are
organized every two years by the International Committee on Computational
Linguistics (ICCL).
"The International Committee on Computational Linguistics was set up by David
Hays in the mid-Sixties as a permanent body to run international computational
linguistics conferences in an original way, with no permanent secretariat,
subscriptions or funds. It was ahead of its time in that and other ways. COLING
has always been distinguished by pleasant venues and atmosphere, rather than by
the clinical efficiency of an airport conference hotel: COLINGs are simply nice
conferences to be at. [...] In recent years, the ACL [Association for
Computational Linguistics] has given great assistance and cooperation in keeping
COLING proceedings available and distributed."
5.3. Language Engineering
Launched in January 1999 by the European Commission, the website HLTCentral
(HLT: Human Language Technologies) gives a short definition of language
engineering:
"Through language engineering we can find ways of living comfortably with
technology. Our knowledge of language can be used to develop systems that
recognise speech and writing, understand text well enough to select information,
translate between different languages, and generate speech as well as the
printed world.
By applying such technologies we have the ability to extend the current limits
of our use of language. Language enabled products will become an essential and
integral part of everyday life."
A full presentation of language engineering can be found in Language
Engineering: Harnessing the Power of Language.
From 1992 to 1998, the Language Engineering Sector was part of the Telematics
Applications Programme of the European Commission. Its aim was to facilitate the
use of telematics applications and to increase the possibilities for
communication in and between European languages. RTD (research and technological
development) work focused on pilot projects that integrated language
technologies into information and communications applications and services. A
key objective was to improve their ease of use and functionality and broaden
their scope across different languages.
From January 1999, the Language Engineering Sector has been rebranded as Human
Language Technologies (HLT), a sector of the IST Programme (IST: Information
Society Technologies) of the European Commission for 1999-2002. HLTCentral has
been set up by the LINGLINK Project as the springboard for access to Language
Technology resources on the Web: information, news, downloads, links, events,
discussion groups and a number of specially-commissioned studies (e-commerce,
telecommunications, Call Centres, Localization, etc.).
The Multilingual Application Interface for Telematic Services (MAITS) is a
consortium formed to specify an applications programming interface (API) for
multilingual applications in the telematic services. A number of telematic
applications, such as X.500, WWW, X.400, internet mail and data bases, is
planned to be enhanced to use this i18n API, and products are planned to be
implemented using the API.
FRANCIL (Réseau francophone de l'ingénierie de la langue) (Francophone Network
in Language Engineering) is a programme launched in June 1994 by the Agence
universitaire de la francophonie (AUPELF-UREF) (University Agency for
Francophony) to strengthen activities in linguistic engineering, particularly
for automatic language processing. This quickly-growing sector includes research
and development for text analysis and generation, and for speech recognition,
comprehension and synthesis. It also includes some applications in the following
fields: document management, communication between the human being and the
machine, writing aid, and computer-assisted translation.
5.4. Internationalization and Localization
"Towards communicating on the Internet in any language..." Babel is an Alis
Technologies/ Internet Society joint project to internationalize the Internet.
Its multilingual site (English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and
Swedish) has two main sections: languages (the world's languages; typographical
and linguistic glossary; Francophonie (French-speaking countries); and the
Internet and multilingualism (developing your multilingual Web site; coding the
world's writing).
The Localisation Industry Standards Association (LISA) is a main organization
for the localization and internationalization industry. The current membership
of 130 leading players from all around the world includes software publishers,
hardware manufacturers, localization service vendors, and an increasing number
of companies from related IT sectors. LISA defines its mission as "promoting the
localization and internationalization industry and providing a mechanism and
services to enable companies to exchange and share information on the
development of processes, tools, technologies and business models connected with
localization, internationalization and related topics". Its site is housed and
maintained by the University of Geneva, Switzerland.
W3C Internationalization/Localization is part of the World Wide Web Consortium
(W3C), an international industry consortium founded in 1994 to develop common
protocols for the World Wide Web. The site gives in particular a definition of
protocols used for internationalization/localization: HTML; base character set;
new tags and attributes; HTTP; language negotiation; URLs & other identifiers
including non-ASCII characters; etc. It also offers some help with creating a
multilingual site.
6. INDEX OF WEBSITES
Agence de la francophonie
Alis Technologies
AltaVista Translation
American Association for Artificial Intelligence (AAAI)
Aquarius
ARTFL Project (ARTFL : American and French Research on the Treasury of the
French Language)
Asia-Pacific Association for Machine Translation (AAMT)
Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL)
Association for Machine Translation in the Americas (AMTA)
Babel / Alis Technologies & Internet Society
CAPITAL (Computer-Assisted Pronunciation Investigation Teaching and Learning)
Center for Machine Translation (CMT) / Carnegie Mellon University (CMU)
Centre d'expertise et de veille inforoutes et langues (CEVEIL)
COLING (International Conference on Computational Linguistics)
Computational Linguistics (CL) and Machine Translation (MT) Group (CL/MT
Research Group) / Essex University
Computer-Assisted Translation and Terminology Unit (CTT) / World Health
Organization (WHO)
Computing Research Laboratory (CRL) / New Mexico State University (NMSU)
CTI (Computer in Teaching Initiative) Centre for Modern Languages / University
of Hull
Dictionnaire francophone en ligne / Hachette & Agence universitaire de la
Francophonie (AUPELF-UREF)
Dictionnaires électroniques / Swiss Federal Administration
ENGSPAN (SPANAM and ENGSPAN) / Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO)
Ethnologue (The)
Eurodicautom / European Commission
EUROCALL (European Association for Computer-Assisted Language Learning)
European Association for Machine Translation (EAMT)
European Chapter of the Association of Computational Linguistics (EACL)
European Committee for the Respect of Cultures and Languages in Europe (ECRCLE)
European Language Resources Association (ELRA)
European Minority Languages / Sabhal Mór Ostaig
European Network in Language and Speech (ELSNET)
Fonds francophone des inforoutes / Agence de la francophonie
FRANCIL (Réseau francophone de l'ingénierie de la langue) / Agence universitaire
de la francophonie (AUPELF-UREF)
FRANTEXT / Institut national de la langue française (INaLF)
Global Reach
Globalink
Groupe d'étude pour la traduction automatique (GETA)
Human Language Technologies (HLTCentral) / European Commission
Human-Languages Page (The)
ILOTERM / International Labour Organization (ILO)
Institut Dalle Molle pour les études sémantiques et cognitives (ISSCO)
Institut national de la langue française (INaLF)
International Committee on Computational Linguistics (ICCL)
International Conference on Computational Linguistics (COLING)
Internet Dictionary Project
Internet Resources for Language Teachers and Learners
Laboratoire de recherche appliquée en linguistique informatique (RALI)
Language Futures Europe
Language Today
Languages of the World by Computers and the Internet (The) (Logos Home Page)
Lernout & Hauspie
LINGUIST List (The)
Localisation Industry Standards Association (LISA)
Logos (Canada, USA, Europe)
Logos (Italy)
Logos Home Page (The Languages of the World by Computers and the Internet)
Merriam-Webster Online: the Language Center
Multilingual Application Interface for Telematic Services (MAITS)
Multilingual Glossary of Internet Terminology (The) (Netglos) / WorldWide
Language Institute (WWLI)
Multilingual Information Society (MLIS) / European Commission
MultiLingual Theory and Technology (MLTT) / Xerox Research Centre Europe (XRCE)
Multilingual Tools and Services / European Union
Natural Language Group (NLG) at USC/ISI / University of Southern California
(USC)
NetGlos (The Multilingual Glossary of Internet Terminology) / WorldWide Language
Institute (WWLI)
OneLook Dictionaries
PARC (Xerox Palo Alto Research Center)
Project Gutenberg
RALI (Laboratoire de recherche appliquée en linguistique informatique)
Réseau francophone de l'ingénierie de la langue (FRANCIL) / Agence universitaire
de la francophonie (AUPELF-UREF)
SPANAM and ENGSPAN / Pan American Health Organization (PAHO)
Speech on the Web
SYSTRAN
TERMITE (ITU Telecommunication Terminology Database) / International
Telecommunication Union (ITU)
Travlang
TTT.org (Translation, Theory and Technology) / Brigham Young University (BYU)
Universal Networking Language (UNL) / United Nations University (UNU)
W3C Internationalization/Localization / World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
Web Languages Hit Parade / Babel
Web of Online Dictionaries (A)
WELL (Web Enhanced Language Learning)
WHOTERM (WHO Terminology Information System) / World Health Organization (WHO)
Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC)
Xerox Research Centre Europe (XRCE)
Yamada WWW Language Guides
7. INDEX OF NAMES
An asterisk (*) indicates the persons who sent contributions especially for this
study.
Patrick Andries (Laboratoire de recherche appliquée en linguistique informatique
- RALI)
Arlette Attali* (Institut national de la langue française - INaLF)
Robert Beard* (A Web of Online Dictionaries)
Louise Beaudoin (Ministry of Culture and Communications in Quebec)
Guy Bertrand* (Centre d'expertise et de veille inforoutes et langues - CEVEIL)
Tyler Chambers* (Human-Language Pages)
Jean-Pierre Cloutier (Chroniques de Cybérie)
Cynthia Delisle* (Centre d'expertise et de veille inforoutes et langues -
CEVEIL)
Helen Dry* (The LINGUIST List)
Bill Dunlap* (2) (Euro-Marketing Associates, Global Reach)
Marcel Grangier* (Section française des Services linguistiques centraux de la
Chancellerie fédérale suisse)
Barbara F. Grimes* (The Ethnologue)
Michael S. Hart* (Project Gutenberg)
Randy Hobler* (Globalink)
Eduard Hovy* (Natural Language Group at USC/ISI)
Pierre Isabelle (Laboratoire de recherche appliquée en linguistique informatique
- RALI)
Christiane Jadelot* (Institut national de la langue française - INaLF)
Annie Kahn (Le Monde)
Brian King* (NetGlos)
Geoffrey Kingscott* (Praetorius)
Steven Krauwer* (European Network in Language and Speech - ELSNET)
Michael C. Martin* (Travlang)
Yoshi Mikami* (The Languages of the World by Computers and the Internet)
Caoimhín P. Ó Donnaíle* (European Minority Languages)
Henri Slettenhaar* (professor at the Webster University)
Martha L. Stone (2) (ZDNN)
June Thompson* (CTI (Computer in Teaching Initiative) Centre for Modern
Languages)
Paul Treanor* (Language Futures Europe)
Rodrigo Vergara (Logos, Italy)
Robert Ware* (2) (OneLook Dictionaries)