Developing an agenda and a roadmap
for achieving full digital language
equality in Europe by 2030

ELE Book

European Language Equality: A Strategic Agenda for Digital Language Equality

Picture of the ELE book cover
Georg Rehm, Andy Way (Ed.). European Language Equality: A Strategic Agenda for Digital Language Equality. Cognitive Technologies. Springer, Cham, Switzerland, June 2023. [bibliographic information|PDF file with the full text of the book]

This open access book presents a comprehensive collection of the European Language Equality (ELE) project’s results, its strategic agenda and roadmap with key recommendations to the European Union on how to achieve digital language equality in Europe by 2030. The fabric of the EU linguistic landscape comprises 24 official languages and over 60 regional and minority languages. However, language barriers still hamper communication and the free flow of information. Multilingualism is a key cultural cornerstone of Europe, signifying what it means to be and to feel European. Various studies and resolutions have found a striking imbalance in the support of Europe’s languages through technologies, issuing a call to action.
Following an introduction, the book is divided into two parts. The first part describes the state of the art of language technology and language-centric AI and the definition and metrics developed to measure digital language equality. It also presents the status quo in 2022/2023, i.e., the current level of technology support for over 30 European languages. The second part describes plans and recommendations on how to bring about digital language equality in Europe by 2030. It includes chapters on the setup and results of the community consultation process, four technical deep dives, an overview of existing strategic documents and an abridged version of the strategic agenda and roadmap.
The recommendations have been prepared jointly with the European community in the fields of language technology, natural language processing, and language-centric AI, as well as with representatives of relevant initiatives and associations, language communities and regional and minority language groups. Ensuring appropriate technology support for all European languages will not only create jobs, growth and opportunities in the digital single market. Overcoming language barriers in the digital environment is also essential for an inclusive society and for providing unity in diversity for many years to come.


Table of Contents

European Language Equality: Introduction
Georg Rehm, Andy Way

European Language Equality: Status Quo in 2022

State-of-the-Art in Language Technology and Language-centric Artificial Intelligence
Rodrigo Agerri, Eneko Agirre, Itziar Aldabe, Nora Aranberri, Jose Maria Arriola, Aitziber Atutxa, Gorka Azkune, Jon Ander Campos, Arantza Casillas, Ainara Estarrona, Aritz Farwell, Iakes Goenaga, Josu Goikoetxea, Koldo Gojenola, Inma Hernáez, Mikel Iruskieta, Gorka Labaka, Oier Lopez de Lacalle, Eva Navas, Maite Oronoz, Arantxa Otegi, Alicia Pérez, Olatz Perez de Viñaspre, German Rigau, Ander Salaberria, Jon Sanchez, Ibon Saratxaga, Aitor Soroa

Digital Language Equality: Definition, Metric, Dashboard
Federico Gaspari, Annika Grützner-Zahn, Georg Rehm, Owen Gallagher, Maria Giagkou, Stelios Piperidis, Andy Way

European Language Technology in 2022/2023
Maria Giagkou, Teresa Lynn, Jane Dunne, Stelios Piperidis, Georg Rehm

Language Report Basque
Kepa Sarasola, Itziar Aldabe, Arantza Diaz de Ilarraza, Ainara Estarrona, Aritz Farwell, Inma Hernáez, Eva Navas

Language Report Bosnian
Tarik Ćušić

Language Report Bulgarian
Svetla Koeva

Language Report Catalan
Maite Melero, Blanca Calvo, Mar Rodríguez, Marta Villegas

Language Report Croatian
Marko Tadić

Language Report Czech
Jaroslava Hlaváčová

Language Report Danish
Bolette Sandford Pedersen, Sussi Olsen, Lina Henriksen

Language Report Dutch
Frieda Steurs, Vincent Vandeghinste, Walter Daelemans

Language Report English
Diana Maynard, Joanna Wright, Mark A. Greenwood, Kalina Bontcheva

Language Report Estonian
Kadri Muischnek

Language Report Finnish
Krister Lindén, Wilhelmina Dyster

Language Report French
Gilles Adda, Ioana Vasilescu, François Yvon

Language Report Galician
José Manuel Ramírez Sánchez, Laura Docío Fernández, Carmen García-Mateo

Language Report German
Stefanie Hegele, Barbara Heinisch, Antonia Popp, Katrin Marheinecke, Annette Rios, Dagmar Gromann, Martin Volk, Georg Rehm

Language Report Greek
Maria Gavriilidou, Maria Giagkou, Dora Loizidou, Stelios Piperidis

Language Report Hungarian
Kinga Jelencsik-Mátyus, Enikő Héja, Zsófia Varga, Tamás Váradi

Language Report Icelandic
Eiríkur Rögnvaldsson

Language Report Irish
Teresa Lynn

Language Report Italian
Bernardo Magnini, Alberto Lavelli, Manuela Speranza

Language Report Latvian
Inguna Skadiņa, Ilze Auziņa, Baiba Valkovska, Normunds Grūzītis

Language Report Lithuanian
Anželika Gaidienė, Aurelija Tamulionienė

Language Report Luxembourgish
Dimitra Anastasiou

Language Report Maltese
Michael Rosner, Claudia Borg

Language Report Norwegian
Kristine Eide, Andre Kåsen, Ingerid Løyning Dale

Language Report Polish
Maciej Ogrodniczuk, Piotr Pęzik, Marek Łaziński, Marcin Miłkowski

Language Report Portuguese
António Branco, Sara Grilo, João Silva

Language Report Romanian
Vasile Păiş, Dan Tufiş

Language Report Serbian
Cvetana Krstev, Ranka Stanković

Language Report Slovak
Radovan Garabík

Language Report Slovenian
Simon Krek

Language Report Spanish
Maite Melero, Pablo Peñarrubia, David Cabestany, Blanca Calvo, Mar Rodríguez, Marta Villegas

Language Report Swedish
Lars Borin, Rickard Domeij, Jens Edlund, Markus Forsberg

Language Report Welsh
Delyth Prys, Gareth Watkins

European Language Equality: The Future Situation in 2030 and beyond

Consulting the Community: How to Reach Digital Language Equality in Europe by 2030?
Jan Hajič, Maria Giagkou, Stelios Piperidis, Georg Rehm, Natalia Resende

Results of the Forward-looking Community-wide Consultation
Emma Daly, Jane Dunne, Federico Gaspari, Teresa Lynn, Natalia Resende, Andy Way, Maria Giagkou, Stelios Piperidis, Tereza Vojtěchová, Jan Hajič, Annika Grützner-Zahn, Stefanie Hegele, Katrin Marheinecke and Georg Rehm

Deep Dive Machine Translation
Inguna Skadiņa, Andrejs Vasiḷjevs, Mārcis Pinnis, Aivars Bērziņš, Nora Aranberri, Joachim Van den Bogaert, Sally O’Connor, Mercedes García-Martínez, Iakes Goenaga, Jan Hajič, Manuel Herranz, Christian Lieske, Martin Popel, Maja Popović, Sheila Castilho, Federico Gaspari, Rudolf Rosa, Riccardo Superbo and Andy Way

Deep Dive Speech Technology
Marcin Skowron, Gerhard Backfried, Eva Navas, Aivars Bērziņš, Joachim Van den Bogaert, Franciska de Jong, Andrea DeMarco, Inma Hernáez, Marek Kováč, Peter Polák, Johan Rohdin, Michael Rosner, Jon Sanchez, Ibon Saratxaga and Petr Schwarz

Deep Dive Text Analytics and Natural Language Understanding
Jose Manuel Gómez-Pérez, Andrés García-Silva, Cristian Berrio, German Rigau, Aitor Soroa, Christian Lieske, Johannes Hoffart, Felix Sasaki, Daniel Dahlmeier, Inguna Skadiņa, Aivars Bērziņš, Andrejs Vasiḷjevs and Teresa Lynn

Deep Dive Data and Knowledge
Martin Kaltenböck, Artem Revenko, Khalid Choukri, Svetla Boytcheva, Christian Lieske, Teresa Lynn, German Rigau, Maria Heuschkel, Aritz Farwell, Gareth Jones, Itziar Aldabe, Ainara Estarrona, Katrin Marheinecke, Stelios Piperidis, Victoria Arranz, Vincent Vandeghinste, Claudia Borg

Strategic Plans and Projects in Language Technology and Artificial Intelligence
Itziar Aldabe, Aritz Farwell, German Rigau, Georg Rehm, Andy Way

Strategic Research, Innovation and Implementation Agenda for Digital Language Equality in Europe by 2030
Georg Rehm, Andy Way


Bibliographic Information

Book Title: European Language Equality

Book Subtitle: A Strategic Agenda for Digital Language Equality

Editors: Georg Rehm, Andy Way

Series Title: Cognitive Technologies

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-28819-7

Publisher: Springer Cham

Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2023

License: CC BY

Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-031-28818-0

Softcover ISBN: 978-3-031-28821-0

eBook ISBN: 978-3-031-28819-7

Series ISSN: 1611-2482

Series E-ISSN: 2197-6635

Edition Number: 1

Number of Pages: XXXIV, 412

Number of Illustrations: 1 b/w illustrations, 27 illustrations in colour

Topics: Natural Language Processing (NLP), Computational Linguistics, Artificial Intelligence, Knowledge Based Systems, Computer and Information Systems Applications, Business Informatics