English: Human language technology (HLT) has been identified as a priority area by the South African government. However; despite efforts by government and the research and development (R&D) community; South Africa has not yet been able to maximise the opportunities of HLT and create a thriving HLT industry. One of the key challenges is the fact that there is insufficient codified knowledge about the current South African HLT components; their attributes and existing relationships. Hence a technology audit was conducted for the South African HLT landscape; to create a systematic and detailed inventory of the status of the HLT components across the eleven official languages. Based on the Basic Language Resource Kit (BLaRK) framework Krauwer (ELRA Newslett 3(2); 1998); we used various data collection methods (such as focus groups; questionnaires and personal consultations with HLT experts) to gather detailed information. The South African HLT landscape is analysed using a number of complementary approaches and based on the interpretations of the results; recommendations are made on how to accelerate HLT development in South Africa; as well as on how to conduct similar audits in other countries and contexts.

In: English

On: South African languages