Chapter 6
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)
Copyright © 1999 Marie Lebert
End of Project Gutenberg's Multilingualism on the Web, by Marie Lebert