2nd Workshop on Resources and Technologies for Indigenous, Endangered and Lesser-resourced Languages in Eurasia (EURALI 2024)

Being the largest continental area on Earth, Eurasia is home to many language families and sub-language families, e.g. Afro-Asiatic (Semitic), Austroasiatic, Caucasian, Celtic, Chukchi-Kamchatkan, Dravidian, Eskimo–Aleut, Indo-European, Japonic, Koreanic, Mongolic, Nivkh, Sino-Tibetan, Tai-Kradai, Turkic, Tungusic, Uralic and Yeniseian. It is a hub of more than 2,018 languages. Despite the rich diversity of these languages, various language communities in Eurasia are under-represented, minoritised, endangered and systematically oppressed politically. As a result, many of these languages, such as Kurdish, Gilaki, Santali, Kashmiri, Laz, and Abkhaz are low-resource and many are endangered with very few studies carried out on them, as is the case with, for example, Shabaki, Talysh, Domari, Korbet and Bawm.

One interesting characteristic of these languages is the influence of communal languages on their lexicon through borrowed words or cognates. Furthermore, such an influence may, to some extent, be observed in the syntax of the less-resourced language(s) in question, often being typologically different and belonging to a different language family. Relying on a lingua franca, many of these linguistic communities are facing standardization issues, particularly in the written forms. In many cases, as a result, scripts of other languages are used by the speakers of an under-represented language.

This workshop will focus on the development of language technology resources and tools for indigenous, endangered and lesser-resourced languages on the Eurasian continent.