Bulgarian Language Faces Digital Extinction - Study

Bulgarian is among the 21 major languages spoken in Europe that are in danger of digital extinction, according to a new study called "Europe's Languages in the Digital Age".

Assessing the level of support through language technology for 30 of the approximately 80 European languages, the experts behind the study conclude that digital support for 21 of the 30 languages investigated is "non-existent" or "weak" at best.

The study, prepared by more than 200 experts and documented in 30 volumes of the META-NET White Paper Series (available both online and in print), assessed language technology support for each language in four different areas: automatic translation, speech interaction, text analysis and the availability of language resources.

Several languages, including Icelandic, Latvian, Lithuanian and Maltese, have received the lowest score in all four areas. On the other end of the spectrum, while no language was considered to have "excellent support", only English was assessed as having "good support", followed by languages such as Dutch, French, German, Italian and Spanish with "moderate support".

Languages such as Basque, Bulgarian, Catalan, Greek, Hungarian and Polish exhibit "fragmentary support", placing them also in the set of high-risk languages.

The European Day of Languages on September 26 recognises the importance of fostering and developing the rich linguistic and cultural heritage of Europe.

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