Author: Mieke Hofmeyr
Ms. Rooweither Mabuya is SADiLaR’s IsiZulu language researcher. She finds computational linguistics interesting. More particularly she is interested in the development of resources for African languages.
Whilst the current Covid-19 situation and national lockdown is impacting the whole of South Africa and its workforce, Ms. Mabuya is staying focused by working on various projects.
“During the national lockdown I worked on the Resources for African Indigenous Languages virtual workshop. I am also busy writing two articles on Named Entity Recognition and Digitizing Humanities in South Africa”.
With all of the uncertainties on when the lockdown will be lifted, Ms. Mabuya plans to be working on conceptualizing a comparative study with a colleague. She stresses the fact that she plans to make the most of the lockdown period over the following few months.
She does acknowledge that African languages are often categorized as less resourced. She concludes by saying:
“Digital Humanities emphasizes the development and use of specialized techniques by building the relevant resources”.