About Tigrinya Language Digital Initiatives

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Vision

Enabling Tigrinya speakers to be creators and beneficiaries of Language and Linguistics Technologies to empower and transform their communities through education, research, and development in their own Language.

Mission

Bringing Language, Technology, and Organizational talents together to create a professional and inclusive platform that increases Tigrinya's footprint in the digital world.

Goal

The 2022 symposium is the first step of many that will help us discover talents, identify relevant projects, and inspire collaboration among the experts towards a more significant, inclusive, equitable, and more impactful undertaking to enable technological creativity and collaboration for the greater good of the Tigrinya speaking communities.  

Our Value

• We believe Tigrinya speakers have equal rights and responsibilities in forging the future of their Language, regardless of their religion, race, region, political view, or any other unique characteristics they may have. The symposium or any other activity organized by the Initiative does not promote or advocate any such agenda. The Initiative is guided by professional and ethical standards fostering a respectful attitude and impartial worldviews.

• We believe that opinions based on feelings, personal preferences, or emotions are less constructive. We value opinions and concussions based on measurable scientific methods. Languages like Arabic, Spanish, Portuguese,... are spoken by many cultures/countries like Tigrinya. They have successfully implemented language technologies (such as Google Translate, Siri ...) as a unified Language. The Tigrinya Language Initiative can achieve the same result by focusing on science and logic-based proven methodology. We, therefore, expect symposium participants to adhere to such principles.

• Language Technologies are beneficial in our daily lives, but they are not effort-proof. We do need to remind ourselves that these technologies do not dictate or define language standards. Furthermore, language accuracy and linguistics standardization are beyond the scope or mandate of this Initiative. The primary goal of this effort is to establish a solid foundation for the future of the Tigrinya language by bringing Language and technical experts together to build and improve critical technologies and related infrastructures.

• We do envision a separate symposium on Tigrinya language standardization, reform, literature, political discourse, etc., which are outside of the scope of this symposium. Therefore, topics related to these should be reserved for future initiatives.

• We expect all participants to adhere to the above values and code of conduct. If you do not want to consent to the guidelines or have any questions, please reach to us before submitting your work.