The Deputy Minister of Higher Education and Science and Technology, Buti Manamela, has officially launched the South African Centre for Digital Language Resources (SADiLaR) in Potchefstroom.
This is a platform that creates and manages digital resources and software supporting research and development in language technologies and language-related studies in all South Africa’s official languages.
SADiLaR is a multi-partner distributed research infrastructure, comprising the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, the University of South Africa, the University of Pretoria, and the Inter-institutional Centre for Language Development and Assessment, and is currently hosted by North-West University.
Hosted by the North-West University’s Potchefstroom Campus, SADiLAR is one of eight research infrastructures established through the Department of Science and Innovation (DSI), intended to provide research infrastructure across the public research system.
So far it has benefited over 1,000 students, and approximately 90 researchers and developers. This virtual infrastructure hosts a resource portal that provides a single point of entry with access to over 200 language resources and tools.
Fields of research include language, literary and heritage studies, history, music, sociology, journalism, philosophy, psychology, media studies, and visual and graphic art. In turn, the availability of large data sets facilitates the development of a variety of language technology applications for the public good.
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