An IASH Work-in-Progress seminar, delivered by Dr Beatrice Alex (Sabbatical Fellow, 2024)
From Sparse Data to Large Language Models: The Evolution and Future of Scottish Gaelic Language Technology
Dr. Beatrice Alex, Senior Lecturer and Chancellor’s Fellow at the Edinburgh Futures Institute and the School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures, has played a pivotal role in advancing Scottish Gaelic language technology. Initially, the lack of digitised Gaelic data posed significant challenges, classifying it as a low-resource language in natural language processing. In this talk, Dr. Alex will present collaborative efforts to develop Gaelic handwriting recognition and text transformation tools aimed at increasing the availability of digitised Gaelic texts. She will also share insights into an ongoing project on digitising and analysing Gaelic and Irish folktales. Looking ahead, Dr. Alex will outline future work planned as part of her sabbatical fellowship at IASH, focusing on how we can responsibly develop advanced language technologies for speakers of this minority language.
Please join in-person, or click the link below to join the webinar:
https://ed-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/83015772676
Passcode: b1QpaAD7