.jpg)
All News A–Z
Academic Symposium and Technology and the Welsh language conference
We are happy to announce our Wales Symposium on Language Technologies https://symposiwm2020.bangor.ac.uk/en for 4 November this year. Also, keep the date 26 February 2021 for our next Technology and the Welsh language conference http://techiaith.cymru/conferences/conference-2021/?lang=en
Publication date: 21 August 2020
Bangor University Internship
We have a new opportunity in the LTU for a Bangor University undergraduate to obtain a 150 hour internship btween February and May 2018 to transcribe more of the BBC’s substantial Welsh language archive. This is a brilliant opportunity for someone with an interest in transcription and language technology to increase their understanding of this field and work in an an interesting and stimulating environment. This post needs a student who is fluent in both oral and written Welsh. Full details are available here.
Publication date: 28 November 2017
Bangor University Internship
Publication date: 20 April 2021
Bangor University Machine Translation KTP graded as Outstanding by Innovate UK
Bangor University and Cymen Cyf have been awarded an A (Outstanding) rating for their recently completed Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP). Cymen is a translation company located in Caernarfon, and is one of the largest private sector employers of graduates in Gwynedd. The KTP focused on developing domain-specific machine translation between English and Welsh, using Cymen’s large archive of translated documents as training data.
Publication date: 8 November 2019
Bangor University helps Mozilla with Welsh speech technology
Mozilla, the California-based international company responsible for the Firefox web browser, have just launched their international Common Voice project. After having started with English last year, three new languages are now being added, namely Welsh, German and French. Welsh succeeded in being amongst the first three thanks to the help of the Language Technologies Unit at Canolfan Bedwyr , Bangor University.
Publication date: 7 June 2018
Eisteddfod Amgen 2021
AI: pushing the bounderies
Publication date: 2 August 2021
Free Welsh language software released to help with lockdown home schooling and working – and beyond
A software package to help Welsh language spellchecking and grammar checking has been released as a free download thanks to a partnership between Bangor University and the Welsh Government. The release aims to support Welsh-medium learners and their parents, home workers and small organisations during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic – and beyond.
Publication date: 28 May 2020
International Seminar on Terminology and Lexicography
On 4 September, we will be hosting an international seminar in Bangor University on the theme “Resources for Terminology and Lexicography: What we have and what we need”. We will have guest speakers from terminology centres and higher education institutions in Europe.
Publication date: 12 July 2017
Job Terminologist / Assistant Terminologist (Maternity cover)
Great opportunity to join Bangor University’s terminology team: temporary post to cover maternity leave - see https://jobs.bangor.ac.uk/details.php.en?id=QLYFK026203F3VBQB7V68LOTX&nPostingID=5390&nPostingTargetID=5736&mask=stdext&lg=UK
Publication date: 18 February 2021
KESS MRES SCHOLARSHIP
Another amazing opportunity to work towards an Kess MRes with the Language Technologies Unit and the Linguistics Department. More information http://kess2.ac.uk/buk2e067-2/.
Publication date: 1 June 2021
KESS MRes Scholarship - Welsh Ontology of Family Law
This is a second advertisment for an MRes scholarship for a Welsh Ontology of Family Law, for which the ability to speak Welsh is essential
Publication date: 15 October 2019
KESS MRes Scholarship - Welsh Ontology of Family Law
This is an advertisment for an MRes scholarship for a Welsh Ontology of Family Law, for which the ability to speak Welsh is essential
Publication date: 15 January 2019
Language Technologies Symposium, Bangor University, 18 September, 2020
It’s a pleasure to announce the first call for papers for our Language Technologies Symposium, Bangor University, 18 September, 2020. This is the first academic symposium in its field for researchers in Wales. A warm welcome all researchers, academics and students. http://symposiwm2020.bangor.ac.uk/en
Publication date: 31 October 2019
Language and Technology in Wales : Volume 1
Publication date: 19 October 2021
Macsen gets more talkative
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is getting more intelligent by the day. By now many people in Wales have devices such as Alexa, Siri, and Google Now that can answer spoken questions about the weather, news, and other useful facts. They can even respond to a voice asking them to turn on the light, switch on the power, or similar skills. Unfortunately, these only work if spoken to in English, but we are a step nearer getting a similar system in Welsh with our own digital personal assistant Macsen, due to work done at Bangor University, aided by a grant from the Welsh Government. To begin with Macsen could only respond to simple commands, but now it can answer questions, and go to the most popular articles in the Welsh Wikipedia to find relevant information. It can read out the first paragraph of an article, or the news headings, using a Welsh synthetic voice.
Publication date: 10 April 2018
New project to provide synthetic Welsh language voice for those in danger of losing their speech
The Language Technologies Unit (LTU) at Canolfan Bedwyr, Bangor University, has won a grant of £20,000 to develop a programme that will record the voices of people who are in danger of losing their ability to speak because of throat cancer or other health issue, and produce a synthetic naturally sounding version of their own voice. At present this service is only available to English speakers, but this will for the first time allow patients to continue to speak Welsh with their own voice, rather than a generic, synthetic voice that sounds robotic or like someone else. The LTU will work with health authorities and speech therapists to offer the service throughout Wales.
Publication date: 28 November 2017
Preben and Lenna win a major global competition with tech giant, Mozilla
Publication date: 17 January 2023
Project gives Welsh-speaking throat cancer sufferers a voice
A Welsh Government-supported project to help Welsh speakers who are at risk of losing their voice to continue to communicate in their native language has received a visit from Minister for the Welsh Language, Eluned Morgan.
Publication date: 31 January 2018
Research Seminar 20 May 2022 - “Machine learning and natural language processing in support of interactive automated tutoring for non-native English writers”
Publication date: 5 May 2022
Research Seminar 24 June 2022 - “Development and Evaluation of Speech Recognition for the Welsh Language.
Publication date: 16 June 2022
Research Seminar 24 November 2022 - ‘“The Development of Metaphor Theory within the Western tradition”
Publication date: 17 November 2022
Research Seminar 27 October 2022 - ‘“Race and Ethnicity Terminology”
Publication date: 24 October 2022
Research Seminar 29 April 2022 The role of language standardization in preventing extinction: Herder and Fichte’s relevance today
Publication date: 20 April 2022
Research Seminar 29 September 2022 - ‘“BU-TTS: An Open-Source Bilingual Welsh-English, Text-to-Speech Corpus.”
Publication date: 26 September 2022
Research by Canolfan Bedwyr’s Language Technologies Unit informs European agenda
Research and expertise by Canolfan Bedwyr's Language Technologies Unit were referenced the European Parliament recently, as Plaid Cymru's European MP, Jill Evans, credited the work of the Unit as being at the forefront of minority language technology. The MEP presented findings of the recommendations made by the Digital Language Diversity Project (DLDP) in its report on ensuring linguistic equality in the fields of digital technology. Following the speech by Jill Evans MEP, the head of the Language Technologies Unit, Delyth Prys, and the Unit's Chief Software Engineer, Dewi Bryn Jones, were invited to speak at a conference on language technologies and digital equality within a multilingual Europe.
Publication date: 4 October 2018
RoboLlywydd and other Welsh Voices
Bangor University has created new tools for producing natural sounding synthetic voices in Welsh. They will be able to read aloud any Welsh text from a computer or mobile device. As part of the Macsen project, funded by the Welsh Government, a quick and easy method was devised for preparing prompts, recording individuals reading them aloud, and using information about Welsh sounds to build synthetic voices that sound very similar to the voice of the individual recorded. In the SeneddLab2017 event in Cardiff recently, the team for the L anguage Technologies Unit , Canolfan Bedwyr had an opportunity to test this method, building a new voice in one hour to give oral information about the Welsh National Assembly, calling it ‘RoboLlywydd’ (‘RoboPresident’).
Publication date: 11 April 2017
Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists honour three researchers from Bangor University
In a special award ceremony hosted by the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists (RCSLT) at Nottingham during their annual conference this year, Delyth Prys, Dewi Bryn Jones a Stefan Ghazzali from the Language Technologies Unit , Canolfan Bedwyr, were presented with a Giving Voice Award. The three, through their Lleisiwr project, funded by the Welsh Government, had developed software to create personalized synthetic voices to help patients about to lose their own voices. The project enabled voice banking in Welsh and English so that a digital version of the voices could be built.
Publication date: 2 October 2019
Services to Bilingual Healthcare Awarded
A project to provide Welsh cautionary labels has won the prize for Services to Bilingual Healthcare in the inaugural Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board Achievement Awards. The partners in the project were the Language Technologies Unit (LTU) at Canolfan Bedwyr and the Centre for Health Economics and Medicines Evaluation (CHEME) at Bangor University, together with the pharmacy team at Ysbyty Gwynedd.
Publication date: 23 November 2016
Show & Tell 25 March 2022
Join Canolfan Bedwyr’s Language Technologies Unit at Bangor University, to celebrate our new language resources. Call by to say hello, or stay for the entire 2 hours!
Publication date: 18 March 2022
Software Engineer Post
We're looking to hire an additional software engineer to join the Language Technologies Unit. This is a great opportunity to join an innovative team developing speech and language technology resources and components for Welsh. Further details may be had here .
Publication date: 8 April 2020
THE LANGUAGE TECHNOLOGIES UNIT IS NOW ISO 27001:2013 CERTIFIED
Publication date: 27 January 2023
Technology and the Welsh language conference 20/01/2017
Publication date: 12 January 2017
Temporary Assistant Terminologist Job
Publication date: 17 November 2022
Wales Academic Symposium on Language Technologies 2022
Registration open for the Wales Academic Symposium on Language Technologies 2022 https://symposiwm.bangor.ac.uk/registration
Publication date: 17 December 2021
Welsh Technology in Support of the Economy
Innovative Welsh language Technologies can provide an impetus to the north Wales economy – that was one of the main messages of a conference on Technology and Welsh Language held at Bangor University’s Pontio Arts & Innovation Centre recently (Friday 20 January).
Publication date: 24 January 2017
Womenspire success for Delyth Prys
The head of Bangor University’s Language Technologies Unit, Delyth Prys, has been given an award by Wales’ leading gender-equality charity recently, in recognition for her pioneering work in the field of minority language technologies.
Publication date: 7 June 2018
Workshop Stronger Together: Sharing Translating Resources in Wales
Publication date: 23 June 2021