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SADiLaR successfully hosts thought-provoking externship
On 13 June 2024, the South African Centre for Digital Language Resources (SADiLaR) hosted final-year linguistics and language practice students from the University of Johannesburg for a one-day online externship. The aim was to educate students on the career possibilities in the field of Digital Humanities and Language Development. SADiLaR team members engaged the students…
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IsiNdebele enjoys major boost on Wikipedia, thanks to SWiP
IsiNdebele has enjoyed a major boost on Wikipedia, thanks to the successful completion of the first phase of the SWiP Project, a collaborative initiative by the South African Centre for Digital Language Resources (SADiLaR), the free encyclopaedia (Wikipedia), and the Pan South African Language Board (PanSALB). The SWiP Project, launched in September last year, aims…
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SADiLaR showcases research during the winter conference season
The South African Centre for Digital Language Resources (SADiLaR) had a significant presence during South Africa’s winter conference season. Its digital humanities researchers and operational teams presented their research and organized digital humanities workshops at various conferences and events held across South Africa from April to July 2024. The role of SADiLaR: advice on formats,…
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isiXhosa.click: student-led project makes isiXhosa vocabulary easily accessible
Learning a new language can be fun but also challenging as you try to navigate your way through a wondrous world of novel sounds and words. Life has just become a little easier for isiXhosa learners with isiXhosa.click, a new online dictionary for isiXhosa and English. Funded partially by the South African Centre for Digital…
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SADiLaR raises global visibility from Poland to Italy
Menno van Zaanen, professor in Digital Humanities at the South African Centre for Digital Language Resources (SADiLaR) recently spent a productive two weeks at the University of Gdańsk in Poland to conduct teaching activities and interdisciplinary research in digital humanities. He was invited by Dr Karolina Rudnicka from the Faculty of Languages as part of…
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SADiLaR Executive Director elected as Fellow of the Zimbabwe Academy of Sciences
The Executive Director of the South African Centre for Digital Language Resources (SADiLaR), Prof Langa Khumalo, has been elected as Fellow of the Zimbabwe Academy of Sciences (ZAS). Founded in 2003, ZAS recognizes and promotes outstanding science through election to membership, and this process brings recognition, honour, distinction, and excellence to scientific programmes, projects, research…
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First-of-a-kind study measures children’s utterances in Southern Bantu languages
A study published by the Child Language Development node of the South African Centre for Digital Language Resources (SADiLaR) is the first of its kind to measure children’s utterances in isiXhosa, Sesotho, Setswana and Xitsonga. The research team, led by node manager and principal investigator Prof Heather Brookes, published their results in the Journal of…
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SADiLaR’s strategic vision presented to CLARIN Management
Stakeholder engagement is a crucial part of the South African Centre for Digital Language Resources (SADiLaR)’s strategic mission. With the adoption of a new five-year strategy plan, the infrastructure is dedicated to promoting its mandate and establishing a local and global presence to attract potential partners in the domains of natural language processing and digital…
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SADiLaR celebrates PhD aimed at improving Sesotho learners’ reading skills
A former high school teacher’s quest to improve the poor reading ability of learners in low-resource languages has resulted in a groundbreaking PhD centered on the development of a means to measure text readability while developing digital language resources for Sesotho. This research is the first of its kind and will also serve as a…
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Child speech database research project attracts international attention
A research project aimed at compiling a child speech database for the South African context, with a focus on speech samples of typically developing Afrikaans and Sesotho sa Leboa-speaking children, is garnering attention both nationally and internationally. Funded by the South African Centre for Digital Language Resources (SADiLaR) and led by Juan Bornman, now professor…