Georg Rehm. European Language Technologies – Past, Present and Future. Language Equality in the Digital Age. Conference on language technologies and digital equality in a multilingual Europe, European Parliament, Brussels, Belgium, September 2018. September 27, 2018. Invited talk

1. Georg Rehm
German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) GmbH
Language Technology Lab – Berlin, Germany
georg.rehm@dfki.de
European
Language Technologies:
Past, Present and Future

2. PAST
Language Equality in the Digital Age (27 September 2018) 2

3. Language Technology
• EU saw the relevance of LT as a driver for European
unity already in the late 1970s (EUROTRA, 1978-1992)
• Some funding for LT topics in FP6, FP7, Horizon 2020
• In H2020, LT was dropped for a while (now it’s back)
• Many state-of-the-art results (e.g., Moses, NMT)
• Europe has always been a leader in the area
• A few large-scale national projects (Verbmobil, Quaero)
• In recent years, all tech giants based in the US and Asia
have been setting up their own AI/LT research groups
• … that increasingly dominate the field, both scientifically
and also as a magnet for young high potentials
Language Equality in the Digital Age (27 September 2018) 3

4. PRESENT
Language Equality in the Digital Age (27 September 2018) 4

5. • Multilingualism is at the heart of the European idea
• 24 EU languages – all have the same status
• Dozens of regional and minority languages as well as
languages of immigrants and trade partners
• Many economic, social and technical challenges:
– The Digital Single Market needs to be multilingual
– Cross-border, cross-lingual, cross-cultural
communication
– Additional challenges in the recent EP resolution
“Language equality in the digital age” P8_TA-PROV(2018)0332

6. !
60 research centres in 34 countries (founded in 2010)
Chair of Executive Board: Jan Hajic (CUNI)
Dep.: J. van Genabith (DFKI), A. Vasiljevs (Tilde)
General Secretary: Georg Rehm (DFKI)
!
Multilingual Europe
Technology Alliance.
900+ members in
67 countries
(published in 2013) (31 volumes; published in 2012)
T4ME (META-NET) CESAR METANET4UMETA-NORDMultilingual Europe Technology AllianceNET

7. ! Basque
! Bulgarian*
! Catalan
! Croatian*
! Czech*
! Danish*
! Dutch*
! English*
! Estonian*
! Finnish*
! French*
! Galician
! German*
! Greek*
! Hungarian*
! Icelandic
! Irish*
! Italian*
! Latvian*
! Lithuanian*
! Maltese*
! Norwegian
! Polish*
! Portuguese*
! Romanian*
! Serbian
! Slovak*
! Slovene*
! Spanish*
! Swedish*
! Welsh
* Official EU languagehttp://www.meta-net.eu/whitepapers

8. MT
English
good
French, Spanish
moderate fragmentary
Catalan, Dutch, German,
Hungarian, Italian, Polish,
Romanian
weak or no support through LT
Basque, Bulgarian, Croatian,
Czech, Danish, Estonian, Finnish,
Galician, Greek, Icelandic, Irish,
Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese,
Norwegian, Portuguese, Serbian,
Slovak, Slovene, Swedish, Welsh
excellent
Czech, Dutch,
Finnish, French,
German, Italian,
Portuguese,
Spanish
moderate fragmentary
Basque, Bulgarian, Catalan,
Danish, Estonian, Galician,
Greek, Hungarian, Irish,
Norwegian, Polish, Serbian,
Slovak, Slovene, Swedish
weak or no support through LT
Croatian, Icelandic, Latvian,
Lithuanian, Maltese, Romanian,
Welsh
excellent
English
good
Speech
English
good
Dutch, French,
German, Italian,
Spanish
moderate fragmentary
Basque, Bulgarian, Catalan,
Czech, Danish, Finnish,
Galician, Greek, Hungarian,
Norwegian, Polish,
Portuguese, Romanian,
Slovak, Slovene, Swedish
weak or no support through LT
Croatian, Estonian, Icelandic, Irish,
Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese,
Serbian, Welsh
excellent
English
good
Czech, Dutch,
French, German,
Hungarian, Italian,
Polish, Spanish,
Swedish
moderate fragmentary
Basque, Bulgarian, Catalan,
Croatian, Danish, Estonian,
Finnish, Galician, Greek,
Norwegian, Portuguese,
Romanian, Serbian, Slovak,
Slovene
Icelandic, Irish, Latvian,
Lithuanian, Maltese, Welsh
weak or no support through LTexcellent
ResourcesTextAnalytics

9. Fragmentary
Weak/none
Moderate
Good
Excellent
Welsh
Maltese
Lithuanian
Latvian
Icelandic
Irish
Croatian
Serbian
Estonian
Slovene
Slovak
Romanian
Norwegian
Greek
Galician
Danish
Bulgarian
Basque
Swedish
Portuguese
Finnish
Catalan
Polish
Hungarian
Czech
Italian
German
Dutch
Spanish
French
English
Levelofsupport
Languages with names in red
have little or no MT support
Source: META-NET White Paper Series: Europe's Languages in the Digital Age. Springer, Heidelberg,
New York, Dordrecht, London, September 2012. Georg Rehm and Hans Uszkoreit (series editors)
Important: even current state of the art
technologies are far from being perfect!

10. Fragmentary
Weak/none
Moderate
Good
Excellent
Welsh
Maltese
Lithuanian
Latvian
Icelandic
Irish
Croatian
Serbian
Estonian
Slovene
Slovak
Romanian
Norwegian
Greek
Galician
Danish
Bulgarian
Basque
Swedish
Portuguese
Finnish
Catalan
Polish
Hungarian
Czech
Italian
German
Dutch
Spanish
French
English
Levelofsupport
Languages with names in red
have little or no MT support
Source: META-NET White Paper Series: Europe's Languages in the Digital Age. Springer, Heidelberg,
New York, Dordrecht, London, September 2012. Georg Rehm and Hans Uszkoreit (series editors)
Important: 20+ European languages are
severely under-supported and face the
danger of digital extinction.

11. Fragmentary
Weak/none
Moderate
Good
Excellent
Welsh
Maltese
Lithuanian
Latvian
Icelandic
Irish
Croatian
Serbian
Estonian
Slovene
Slovak
Romanian
Norwegian
Greek
Galician
Danish
Bulgarian
Basque
Swedish
Portuguese
Finnish
Catalan
Polish
Hungarian
Czech
Italian
German
Dutch
Spanish
French
English
Levelofsupport
Languages with names in red
have little or no MT support
Source: META-NET White Paper Series: Europe's Languages in the Digital Age. Springer, Heidelberg,
New York, Dordrecht, London, September 2012. Georg Rehm and Hans Uszkoreit (series editors)
We carried out the study in 2011/2012. While support
for many languages has improved in the meantime,
the overall picture remains mostly the same.

12. Excellent
Good
Moderate
Fragmentary
Weak/no
support
LanguageTechnologySupport
MillionsofNativeSpeakers(Worldwide)
Yiddish
Welsh
VlaxRomani
Turkish
Scots
Romany
Occitan
Maltese
Macedonian
Luxembourgish
Lithuanian
Limburgish
Latvian
Icelandic
Friulian
Frisian
Breton
Bosnian
Asturian
Albanian
Irish
Croatian
Serbian
Hebrew
Estonian
Slovene
Slovak
Romanian
Norwegian
Greek
Galician
Danish
Bulgarian
Basque
Swedish
Portuguese
Finnish
Catalan
Polish
Hungarian
Czech
Italian
German
Dutch
Spanish
French
English
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
400
Source: Georg Rehm, Hans Uszkoreit, Ido Dagan, Vartkes Goetcherian, Mehmet Ugur Dogan, Coskun Mermer, Tamás Váradi, Sabine Kirchmeier-Andersen,
Gerhard Stickel, Meirion Prys Jones, Stefan Oeter, and Sigve Gramstad. An Update and Extension of the META-NET Study “Europe's Languages in the
Digital Age”. In Proceedings of the Workshop on Collaboration and Computing for Under-Resourced Languages in the Linked Open Data Era (CCURL 2014),
Reykjavik, Iceland, May 2014.

13. LT – Current Developments
• Multilingual Europe: our languages enjoy equal status yet digital
extinction of the majority of EU languages is a very severe danger.
• LT Research and Innovation in Europe: World class research results
(e.g., QT21), strong SME base; fragmentation; need for coordination.
• Digitisation of Europe: Big need for HQ Language Technologies.
• AI: Important breakthroughs and massive investments in R&D and
applications (mostly in the US and Asia) – huge opportunity for Europe!
• The European language challenge cannot be abandoned or outsourced!
! STOA Workshop and Report: “Language equality in
the digital age: towards a Human Language Project”
! EP Resolution “Language equality in the digital age”
P8_TA-PROV(2018)0332
! Huge need for Language Technology made in Europe for Europe!
Language Equality in the Digital Age (27 September 2018) 13

14. FUTURE
Language Equality in the Digital Age (27 September 2018) 14

15. ?

16. European Language Grid
Language Equality in the Digital Age (27 September 2018) 16

17. Horizon 2020 Call ICT-29-2018
• “A multilingual Next Generation Internet” (budget: 25M€)
• Technology-enabled multilingualism for an inclusive DSM
• Expected impacts:
– Provide better access to quality resources and tools
– Increase quality and coverage of multilingual solutions
used by industrial players
– Increase the uptake of LT in Europe in various sectors
– Cost savings for private and public sector users of LT
• Topic a) – European Language Grid
– One Innovation Action, 7M€
– Winning proposal: ELG – European Language Grid
• Topic b) – Domain-specific/challenge-oriented HLT
– Six Research and Innovation Actions, approx. 3M€ each
Language Equality in the Digital Age (27 September 2018) 17

18. Language Equality in the Digital Age (27 September 2018) 18
ELGELG – The Primary Platform for
Language Technology in Europe
Web Interface APIs
European Language Grid – Content Catalogue
LT Services, Tools, Components, Technologies
Language Resources and Data Sets
Organisations, Languages, Service Types etc.
Cloud Infrastructure
• Development of a functional language technology cloud platform for Europe
• Market place for European LT business space (directory of stakeholders)
• Hundreds of LT services and resources – easy-to-use and easy-to-integrate
• Many different technologies for all European languages
• Evaluation through 15-20 pilot projects feeding back into the platform
• 30+ national competence centres will be set up for a strong European network
• Services and resources can be made available by the community
• Boosting the emerging Multilingual Digital Single Market
• Interoperability of services through containerisation
• Towards a thriving and flourishing European LT community
Consortium
• DFKI GmbH (Coordinator) (DE)
• ILSP, R.C. “Athena“ (GR)
• University of Sheffield (UK)
• Charles University (CZ)
• ELDA (FR)
• Tilde (LV)
• SAIL LABS GmbH (AT)
• Expert System Iberia (ES)
• University of Edinburgh (UK)
2019–2021

19. The Grand Vision:
Human Language Project
Language Equality in the Digital Age (27 September 2018) 19

20. • Goal: Deep Natural Language Understanding by 2030
• All official European and many additional languages
• Broad coverage, high quality, high precision
• Create new approaches, algorithms, data sets
• Across modalities: text, text types, speech, video etc.
• Across platforms: messaging, telephony, social, mobile,
IoT, robots, smart devices, conversational technologies etc.
• Across cultures: knowledge, customs, formalities, humour,
emotion, subjectivity, biases, opinions, filter bubble etc.
• How? As the next EU FET Flagship Project!
Language Equality in the Digital Age (27 September 2018)
Human Language Project
20

21. HLP Prep Proposal
• FET Flagship Projects: Up to 1B€ of funding for up to ten years
• Flagships: Human Brain Project, Graphene, Quantum (2019)
• H2020 FETFLAG-01-2018 called for preparatory actions, i.e.,
small (1M€) projects to prepare the full flagship proposal
• Our proposal: “Human Language Project Preparation”
• Consortium of 16 partners (coordinated by DFKI)
• Second stage proposal submitted on 18 September 2018
• Results to be announced at ICT 2018 in Vienna (December)
• More information at http://human-language-project.eu
Language Equality in the Digital Age (27 September 2018) 21

22. Language Equality in the Digital Age (27 September 2018) 22
The following national and federal ministries support the HLP Prep proposal:
• Flemish Department of Economy, Science and Innovation
• Ministry of the Interior of the Republic of Cyprus
• Czech Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports
• Danish Ministry of Culture; French Ministry of Culture
• German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy
• Ministry of Economic Affairs, Labour and Housing Baden-Württemberg
• Ministry of Education, Research and Religious Affairs Centre for the Greek Language
• Ministry of Tourism, Industry and Innovation (Iceland)
• Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht (Ireland)
• Culture Information Systems Centre of the Republic of Latvia
• Ministry of Culture (Slovenia)
• Culture Information Systems Centre of the Republic of Latvia
• Ministry of Public Administration (Slovenia)
• Ministry of Education, Science and Sport (Slovenia)
• Secretary of State for Information Society and Digital Agenda (Spain)
Summary of the support for HLP Prep – We have received 375+ letters of
support from the following stakeholders, covering all 28 EU Member States:
• 16 national and federal ministries
• 24 national language institutions and related organisations
• 135 research organisations (including universities and research centres)
• 136 companies (including 41 Language Service Providers)

23. 23
The HLP is a large-scale, long-
term research and development
and innovation programme, in
which basic and applied research
and development, as well as
innovation and commercialisation
work closely together to develop
ground-breaking technologies for
Deep Natural Language Under-
standing by the year 2030.
Among the fields whose
collaboration we foresee in the
HLP are the following:
Primary fields:
• Computational Linguistics & LT
• Linguistics
• Artificial Intelligence
• Knowledge Technologies
Secondary fields:
• Social Sciences, DH
• Computer Science
• Cognitive Science
Human
Language
Project
Create and
sustain a truly
multilingual
European
society without
language
barriers
Define the state
of the art in
Language
Technologies
and Language-
centric Artificial
Intelligence
Boost growth of
Europe’s
economy via
the Multilingual
Digital Single
Market
Develop new
talents and
skills and
attractive,
sustainable jobs
Make Europe
the global
leader for
innovative
Language
Technologies
Foster
innovation, new
ideas, new
companies and
business
models

24. Language Equality in the Digital Age (27 September 2018) 24
Human
Language
Project
The wider European research, development and innovation ecosystem around the Human Language Project

25. HLP Core Project
• Coordination of the flagship (CP and PPs)
• Continuous roadmap development
• General technology and algorithm development
• Digital data, resources, computing and
collaboration infrastructure
HLP Partnering Projects
• Language-specific and/or regional
consortia doing research on their own languages
• Close collaboration with the Core Project
• Overlap between CP and PP in terms of partners
HLP
Partnering
Project:
Spanish
PP
PP
HLP
Partnering
Project:
Italian
HLP
Partnering
Project:
Greek
HLP
Partnering
Project:
German
HLP
Partnering
Project:
Polish
HLP
Partnering
Project:
Baltic
languages
PP
HLP
Core Project
HLP
Partnering
Project:
Dutch
PP

26. EP Resolution “Language
equality in the digital age”
P8_TA-PROV(2018)0332
Language Equality in the Digital Age (27 September 2018) 26

27. “Language equality” Resolution
• Very important initiative and document for Europe!
• A multitude of relevant suggestions & recommendations:
– Current obstacles to achieving language equality in the
digital age in Europe (12 items)
– Improving the institutional framework for language
technology policies at EU level (12 items)
– Recommendations for EU research policies (9 items)
– Education policies to improve the future of language
technologies in Europe (6 items)
– Language technologies: benefits for both private
companies and public bodies (6 items)
• ELG and HLP (Prep) address many of these 45 items!
Language Equality in the Digital Age (27 September 2018) 27

28. Language Equality in the Digital Age (27 September 2018) 28
ELG HLP CEF
Recommendations for EU research policies
25 Establish large-scale, long-term LT funding programme X
26 ICT integrators should be given economic incentives for LT X
27 Europe has to secure its leadership in language-centric AI X
28 EU funding programmes should boost LT basic research X
29 Create a European LT platform for sharing of services X
32 Set up LT financing platform; emphasise R&D in Deep NLU X X
Education policies to improve the future of language technologies in Europe
34 Retain talent in Europe; joint action at European level X
39 Member States to provide support for educational institutions X
Language technologies: benefits for both private companies and public bodies
40 Develop investment instruments and accelerator programs X
41 Enable and empower European SMEs to use LTs X
43 Develop multilingual public e-services X

29. Summary & Conclusions
! Europe is in dire need of sophisticated and robust
Language Technologies for its specific demands
! Not only for the 24 official EU languages but dozens more!
! Europe is in a unique position to lead the quest for
technologies for Deep Natural Language Understanding
! … and to benefit massively from them (society, economy)
! ELG: first step towards a functional European LT Platform
! Need for a coordinated & concerted push in basic research,
applied R&D and innovation – danger to lose touch!
! Let’s set up the HLP as the next EU FET Flagship
Project for game-changing new breakthroughs in LT!
Language Equality in the Digital Age (27 September 2018) 29

30. Thank you!
Dr. Georg Rehm
DFKI Berlin
! georg.rehm@dfki.de
! @georgrehm
! http://georg-re.hm
! http://de.linkedin.com/in/georgrehm
Language Equality in the Digital Age (27 September 2018) 30
Human
Language
Project
Create and
sustain a truly
multilingual
European
society without
language
barriers
Define the state
of the art in
Language
Technologies
and Language-
centric Artificial
Intelligence
Boost growth of
Europe’s
economy via
the Multilingual
Digital Single
Market
Develop new
talents and
skills and
attractive,
sustainable jobs
Make Europe
the global
leader for
innovative
Language
Technologies
Foster
innovation, new
ideas, new
companies and
business
models