A brief summary of conclusions There is no disputing the fact that few people speak Icelandic. Nevertheless, Icelandic is a living national language that is used in all areas of the nation’s communications and commerce. Its significance is therefore greater than that of languages that are used by more people, but are only secondary languages within their nations, or the languages of tribes or communities that constitute minorities within larger national units. Furthermore, Icelandic data technology is well advanced compared with the position in many other language areas. Iceland has one of the world’s highest per capita rates of computer ownership, and also one of the highest rates of Internet access and use. The need for Icelandic to cope with the demands of information technology is therefore greater than might be thought in terms of the population size alone. The Icelandic Government is aware of these considerations. The booklet Í krafti upplýsinga, published by the Ministry of Education and Culture in 1996, contained the following statement: “It is necessary to promote the use of Icelandic in information technology and to encourage the production of material at a suitable rate so as to ensure access to the widest possible range of material in Icelandic. Producers in Iceland must be able to use new technology and contribute towards a good supply of Icelandic material on CDs and the Internet in the years ahead.” In accordance with this policy, an agreement was recently concluded on the translation of the Microsoft Windows system into Icelandic. It is the group’s opinion that the next step on this route should be to press for the development of various types of language engineering tools that will work with Icelandic and so facilitate the use of Icelandic in the information society. This vision includes the writing of software to correct spelling and grammar, break words between lines, etc., the compilation of an electronic dictionary and thesaurus of Icelandic accessible to everybody; guidance on the inflection of words in all computers, etc. If Iceland does not take this step, there is a danger that it will prove difficult to use Icelandic in the information society. Some of the problems involved in language engineering will probably be solved automatically thanks to the emergence of high-powered technology and changes in manufacturers’ policy towards their foreign markets, but others will have to be solved by the Icelanders themselves. What is vital here is to try to ensure that allowance is made in all areas for the use of Icelandic and for the special properties of the language right from the production stage of the equipment. It is also essential to fight for the inclusion of Icelandic in international standards. In general, universal, rather than specific, solutions must be used. This is the only policy that will guarantee that it will be possible to use Icelandic in information technology in the future. Specific solutions are expensive, are valid for short periods and are very difficult and labour-intensive to maintain, and they should only be used in cases of absolute necessity. At present, the market for language engineering in Iceland is not sufficiently large to be able to support the developmental work needed to ensure the position of Icelandic in the information society. This is explained in further detail in the report. It is not certain that this will necessarily be the case in the future. Hitherto, Icelanders have “paid for Icelandic”, so to speak: they have a high level of book and newspaper publication, and pay a higher price for these items precisely because they are in Icelandic and the market for them is therefore limited. Gradually, Icelanders would presumably pay the cost involved in translating and adapting information technology for use in Icelandic. Nevertheless, the committee is of the opinion that a campaign needs to be fought to establish language engineering, and that this will not be done without state support. The committee’s view is that such a campaign will pay for itself in the long run. The aim of the campaign should be to consolidate the common foundation for language engineering and the gathering of data for language engineering tools, and to encourage companies to develop the tools by making use of the database. In this way, a new language engineering industry could be created, and that which already exists would be strengthened. This refers to various industries connected with publishing and language use, such as the publication of dictionaries and glossaries, programs to correct spelling and grammar, various programs to assist with text production, speech simulators and speech recognition devices. Such an industry in Iceland could be expected to make an entry on foreign markets, and should be encouraged to do so: there can be no doubt that various opportunities will arise on those markets in the years ahead. It is proposed that the campaign be waged on four fronts: 1. The development of common databases (linguistic databases) that can be used by companies as sources of raw material for their products. 2. Investment in applied research in the field of language engineering. 3. Financial support for companies for the development of language engineering products. 4. Development and upgrading of education and training in the field of language engineering and linguistics. This campaign would involve the establishment of a language engineering development centre which would have the task of working with publishers and others on the development of the necessary basic databases of the language. The involvement of interested parties such as computer firms, publishers, translators and others, in addition to the state, would be essential. Secondly, the committee proposes that funds be channelled into a research fund to support research and development in the field of language engineering. This could either take the form of a special fund, or else the funds of the Icelandic Research Council (IRC) could be boosted with additional capital earmarked for this industry. The fund would operate in two divisions, as the IRC’s Research Fund does at present, making grants on the one hand for primary applied research, which would be of benefit to the industry in the long term, on the other for development projects within companies, in particular for the manufacture of language engineering devices. It would be essential for this financial support to be counted as complementary contributions in connection with grants from the European Union, since Europe is the main source of expertise in this area and projects within the EU’s Fifth Framework Programme could be of great significance for development in Iceland, both as regards contacts and financing. Next, the committee considers it essential to develop and upgrade education and training in this area, and proposes that short applied training courses in speech technology and a master’s programme in language engineering. The total annual cost of the proposed campaign would therefore be (in ISK millions): Development centre 25 - 50 Research and development fund 150 Special funding for large international projects 30 Short applied courses in speech technology 10 Master’s programme in computational linguistics 10 Total ISK 225 - 250 million per year This may be thought a large sum, which indeed it is, but the committee believes it is a very modest and realistic assessment, and that any substantial reduction would mean that the desired results would not be achieved. In other words, no allowance has been made in this estimate for reductions for which no urgent reasons have been advanced. It is vital that a start be made on these activities shortly. The aim should be that the campaign will last for a limited time, and that the activities should be self-supporting in five to ten years. Appendices 1. Tasks to be Tackled in Icelandic Language Engineering Priority tasks For Icelanders, the main aim must be that it should be possible to use Icelandic, written with the proper characters, in as many contexts as possible in the sphere of computer and communication technology. Naturally, however, they will have to adjust their expectations to practical considerations. To make it possible to use Icelandic in all areas, under all circumstances, would be an immense task. Therefore, the main emphasis must be put on those areas that touch on the daily life and work of the general public, or are likely to do so in the near future. The committee proposes that over the next five years, efforts be concentrated on the following tasks: 1. The main computer programs on the general market (Windows, Word, Excel, Netscape, Internet Explorer, Eudora,...) should be available in Icelandic. 2. It should be possible to use the Icelandic letters (áéíóúýðþæöÁÉÍÓÚÝÐÞÆÖ) in all circumstances: in computers, mobile telephones, teletext and other applications used by the public. 3. Work should proceed on the parsing of Icelandic, with the aim that it should be possible to use computer technology to analyse Icelandic texts into parts of speech and syntactic units. For this to be possible, it will be necessary to: 3.1 Establish a large computerised text corpus including Icelandic texts of the widest possible variety of types as a basis for continuing work. 3.2 Establish a fully parsed linguistic database (grammatically and semantically analysed) for use in further work. 4. Good auxiliary programs should be developed for textual work in Icelandic, i.e. for hyphenation, spelling-checks, grammar correction, etc. 5. A good Icelandic speech synthesiser should be developed. It should be capable of reading Icelandic texts with clear and comprehensible pronunciation and natural intonation that is understandable without special training. 6. Work should be done on speech recognition for Icelandic, the aim being to develop programs that can understand normal Icelandic speech.