Research & Development
Projects & Publications
We as a research and development centre combine research experts and the essential technical and administrative support in order to conduct cutting-edge research in text technology and use that as the basis for the development of innovative and relevant technological applications.
We establish ourselves as leaders in the field of Human Language Technology within South Africa and promote multilingualism and diversity within the digital environment.
Development
Latest on our Projects
Some information here about what we work on within these projects.
Our Focus
Research Areas
Innovating and working with our partners to research and develop applications within human language technology.
Corpora & Annotation
Information regarding Corpora & Annotation and what we do here. How does it benefit the reader?
Core Technologies
Information regarding Corpora & Annotation and what we do here. How does it benefit the reader?
Machine Translation
Information regarding Corpora & Annotation and what we do here. How does it benefit the reader?
We ensure long-term sustainability for research and development activities, which is quintessential for the establishment of valuable partnerships with industrial and business partners.
Publications
Research outputs in 2022
Linguistically annotated dataset for four official South African languages with a conjunctive orthography: IsiNdebele, isiXhosa, isiZulu, and Siswati >
Gaustad, T. & Puttkammer, M.J. 2022. Data in Brief. Volume 41, April 2022, 107994
Research outputs during 2021
Standaardisering as ’n produk van die tydsgees
Van Huyssteen, G.B & Pilon, S. 2021. Ontlaering – Geworteldheid: Die onderrig van Afrikaans in spesifieke ruimtes
When a word is befok
Van Huyssteen, G.B. 2021. Afrikaans Grammar Workshop III
How Afrikaans women became fierce-tempered
Van Huyssteen, G.B. & Eiselen, E.R.E. 2021. Zürich Workshop on Afrikaans Linguistics.
Swearing in South Africa: Multidisciplinary research on language taboos
Van Huyssteen, G.B. 2021. International Conference of the Digital Humanities Association of Southern Africa 2021
Using ordinal logistic regression to analyse self-reported usage of, and attitudes towards swearwords
Van Huyssteen, G.B. & Eiselen, E.R.E. 2021. International Conference of the Digital Humanities Association of Southern Africa 2022
Development of linguistically annotated parallel language resources for four South African languages.
Gaustad, T. & Puttkammer, M.J. 2021. 2nd Workshop on Resources for African Indigenous Languages (RAIL 2021), co-located with DHASA 2021.
Canonical Segmentation and Syntactic Morpheme Tagging of Four Resource-scarce Nguni Languages
Du Toit, J.S. & Puttkammer, M.J. 2021. 2nd Workshop on Resources for African Indigenous Languages (RAIL 2021), co-located with DHASA 2021
Oor feekse en helleveë [On shrews and harridans]
Van Huyssteen, G.B. & Eiselen, E.R.E. 2021. Tydskrif vir Geesteswetenskappe
Quantitative analysis of Sesotho sa Leboa part of speech taggers
Mathe, D.S. and Eiselen, E.R.E. 2021. South African Journal of African Languages
Content developers as stakeholders in the blended learning ecosystem: The Virtual Institute for Afrikaans’ Language Education Portal as a case study
Breed, A., Fouché, N., Brink, N., Coetzee, M., Erasmus, C., Kapp, S., Pilon, S., Huyssteen, G.B. and Wierenga, R. 2021. Re-Envisioning and Restructuring Blended Learning for Underprivileged Communities
Research outputs from 2016 to 2020
2020
NCHLT Web Services and CTexTools
Puttkammer, M. 2020. Tour de clarin, vol III
Viability of Neural Networks for Core Technologies for Resource-Scarce Languages
Loubser, M. & Puttkammer, M.J. 2020. Information 11(1), 41
Dataset for comparable evaluation of machine translation between 11 South African languages
McKellar, C.A. & Puttkammer, M.J. Data in Brief, Volume 29, 2020, 105146, ISSN 2352-3409, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dib.2020.105146.
Die /r/ in Afrikaans: Fonetiese en fonologiese eienskappe
Wissing, D.P. & Pienaar, W. 2020. Literator
Afrikaans
Wissing, D.P. 2020. Journal of the International Phonetic Association
2019
“Wat gaan word van geskrewe Standaardafrikaans? [What is going to happen to written Standard Afrikaans?]”
VAN HUYSSTEEN, G.B. 2019. In Van der Elst, J. (ed.). SA Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns: Verlede, hede toekoms (1909-2019). 86-89. ISBN: 978-0-949976-97-0. Pretoria: SAAWK.
Herbesoek aan Afrikaanse klemtoon: is dit (nog) ’n inisiëleklemtoontaal?
WISSING, D.P. LitNet Akademies, 16.2 (2019): 214-239.
Perspektief op/ɛ/-verlaging in Afrikaans.
WISSING, D.P. LitNet Akademies, 16.1 (2019): 166-206.
2018
The Hulle en Goed Constructions in Afrikaans.
VAN HUYSSTEEN, G.B. 2018.
Stabilising determinants in the transmission of phonotactic systems: Diachrony and acquistition of coda clusters in Dutch and Afrikaans
WISSING, D.P. 2018.
The Status of Tone in Sesotho: A Production and Perception Study.
WISSING, D.P. 2018.
Naar een Wikifonia.
VAN OOSTENDORP, M., VISSER, W. & WISSING, D. Nederlandse Taalkunde, 23.2 (2018): 141-150.
Die ontwikkeling van [ʃ] in Afrikaans
WISSING, D. 2018. Literator. 39. 10.4102/lit.v39i2.1486.
2017
Afrikaanse Woordelys en Spelreëls [Afrikaans Wordlist and Spelling Rules].
TAALKOMMISSIE VAN DIE SUID-AFRIKAANSE AKADEMIE VIR WETENSKAP EN KUNS (COMP). 2017. Eleventh edition. ISBN (printed): 978-1-86890-207-1; ISBN (online): 978-1-86890-208-8. Cape Town, Pharos, 775pp.
Voorwoord [Preface].
VAN HUYSSTEEN, G.B. 2017. In: Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns. Afrikaanse woordelijs en spelreëls. Faksimilee-uitgawe [Afrikaans wordlist and spelling rules. Facsimile edition]. Pretoria: Protea Boekhuis.
Morfologie. [Morphology].
VAN HUYSSTEEN, G.B. 2017. In: Carstens, WAM & Bosman, N. (reds.). Kontemporêre Afrikaanse Taalkunde. [Contemporary Afrikaans Linguistics]. Second edition. ISBN 978-0-627-03437-4. Pretoria: Van Schaik Uitgewers. pp. 177-214.
Plosive voicing in Afrikaans: differential cue weighting and sound change.
WISSING, D.P. 2017. Journal of Linguistics
Elektroniese woordeboeke en die Afrikaanse gemeenskap [Electronic dictionaries and the Afrikaans community]
VAN HUYSSTEEN, G.B. & Luther, J. 2017. Gents colloquium over het Afrikaans [Ghent colloquium on Afrikaans], University of Ghent, Ghent, Belgium.
Constructionist perspectives on two competing associative plural constructions.
VAN HUYSSTEEN, G.B. 2017. 11th International Mediterranean Morphology Meeting, Nicosia, Cyprus.
2016
South African Language Resources: Phrase Chunking.
EISELEN, R. 2016. Tenth International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation, LREC 2016, Portorož, Slovenia. pp. 689-693
Government Domain Named Entity Recognition for South African Languages.
EISELEN, R. 2016. Tenth International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation, LREC 2016, Portorož, Slovenia. pp. 3344-3348.
Optical character recognition for South African Languages.
PUTTKAMMER, M.J. & HOCKING, J. 2016. PRASA 2016.
The effect of respondents' skill levels in collaborative data annotation.
PUTTKAMMER, M.J. & VAN HUYSSTEEN, G.B. 2016. "Under-resourced Languages, Collaborative Approaches and Linked Open Data: Resources, Methods and Applications". Springer. Language Resources and Evaluation Journal Special Issue.
AfriBooms: An Online Treebank for Afrikaans.
VAN HUYSSTEEN, G.B., AUGUSTTINUS, L., VAN EYNDE, F., VAN NIEKERK, D., SCHUURMAN, I. & VANDEGHINSTE, V. 2016. LREC 2016.
A stepwise methodology for establishing natural language processing evaluation reliability.
EISELEN, R. & VAN HUYSSTEEN, G.B. 2016. Language Resource and Evaluation.
What French for Gabonese French Lexicography.
NDINGA-KOUMBA, S., ASSAM, B.N. & OMPOUSSA, V. 2016. Lexikos. 26(2016): 1-31
Die Virtuele Instituut vir Afrikaans (VivA) en markbehoeftes in die Afrikaanse gemeenskap.
VAN HUYSSTEEN, G. B., BOTHA, M. & ANTONITES, A. 2016. Tydskrif vir Geesteswetenskappe. 56(2-1): 410-437.
Research outputs from 2011 to 2015
2015
Afrikaans and Dutch as closely-related languages: A comparison to West Germanic languages and Dutch dialects.
HEERINGA, W., DE WET, F. & VAN HUYSSTEEN, G.B. 2015. Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics Plus. 47(2015): 1-18.
Planning and Macrostructural Elements for a Multilingual Culinary Dictionary of Gabonese Languages.
OMPOUSSA, V. & NDINGA_KOUMBA-BINZA, S. 2015. Lexikos. 25 (2015): 507-524.
Translation Technology in South Africa.
VAN HUYSSTEEN, G.B. & GRIESEL, M. 2015. In: Chan, S-W. (ed.). Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Technology. ISBN: 978-0-415-52484-1. New York: Routledge. 326-336pp.
Aan die en besig in Afrikaanse progressiwiteitskonstruksies : 'n korpusondersoek (2) : navorsings- en oorsigartikel.
VAN HYUSSTEEN. G.B. & BREED. A. 2015. Tydskrif vir Geesteswetenskappe. 55(2):251-269.
Palatalisation of /s/ in Afrikaans.
WISSING, D.P., PIENAAR W. & VAN NIEKERK, D. 2015. Spilplus. 48(2015): 137-158.
Bilingual speech rhythm: Spanish-Afrikaans in Patagonia.
COETZEE, A.W., LORENZO., G.A., HENRIKSEN, A. & WISSING. D.P. 2015. In The Scottish Consortium for ICPhS 2015, eds. Proceedings of the 18th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences. London: International Phonetic Association: London.
HLT and the changing face of translation - a CTexT perspective.
FOURIE. W. 2015. Boers, M. ed. Proceedings of the South African Translators' Institute's Second Triennial Conference. Johannesburg: SATI. p. 18-20). ISBN: 978-0-620-68208-4
2014
Afrikaans and Dutch as closely-related languages: A comparison to West Germanic languages and Dutch dialects.
HEERINGA, W., DE WET, F. & VAN HUYSSTEEN, G.B. 2015. Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics Plus. 47(2015): 1-18.
Planning and Macrostructural Elements for a Multilingual Culinary Dictionary of Gabonese Languages.
OMPOUSSA, V. & NDINGA_KOUMBA-BINZA, S. 2015. Lexikos. 25 (2015): 507-524.
Translation Technology in South Africa.
VAN HUYSSTEEN, G.B. & GRIESEL, M. 2015. In: Chan, S-W. (ed.). Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Technology. ISBN: 978-0-415-52484-1. New York: Routledge. 326-336pp.
Aan die en besig in Afrikaanse progressiwiteitskonstruksies : 'n korpusondersoek (2) : navorsings- en oorsigartikel.
VAN HYUSSTEEN. G.B. & BREED. A. 2015. Tydskrif vir Geesteswetenskappe. 55(2):251-269.
Palatalisation of /s/ in Afrikaans.
WISSING, D.P., PIENAAR W. & VAN NIEKERK, D. 2015. Spilplus. 48(2015): 137-158.
Bilingual speech rhythm: Spanish-Afrikaans in Patagonia.
COETZEE, A.W., LORENZO., G.A., HENRIKSEN, A. & WISSING. D.P. 2015. In The Scottish Consortium for ICPhS 2015, eds. Proceedings of the 18th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences. London: International Phonetic Association: London.
HLT and the changing face of translation - a CTexT perspective.
FOURIE. W. 2015. Boers, M. ed. Proceedings of the South African Translators' Institute's Second Triennial Conference. Johannesburg: SATI. p. 18-20). ISBN: 978-0-620-68208-4
Research outputs from 2007 to 2010
2007
Accelerating the Annotation of Lexical Data for Less-Resourced Languages.
VAN HUYSSTEEN, G.B. & PUTTKAMMER, M.J. 2007. Accelerating the Annotation of Lexical Data for Less-Resourced Languages. (In Proceedings of the 8th Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association (Interspeech 2007). p. 1505-1508.)
Evaluating Wrapped Progressive Sampling for Automatic Algorithmic Parameter Optimisation.
GROENEWALD, H.J., VAN HUYSSTEEN, G.B. & PUTTKAMMER, M.J. 2007. (In Angelova, G., Bontcheva, K., Mitkov, R., & Nikolov, N., eds. Proceedings of Recent Advances in Natural Language Processing 2007, Borovets, Bulgaria. p. 251-255.)
Using Machine Learning to Annotate Data for NLP Tasks Semi-Automatically.
VAN HUYSSTEEN, G.B., PUTTKAMMER, M.J., PILON, S., & GROENEWALD, H.J. 2007. (In Orasan, C. & Kuebler, S., eds. Proceedings of International Workshop on Computer-Aided Language Processing, Borovets, Bulgaria.)
Accelerating the Annotation of Lexical Data for Less-Resourced Languages.
VAN HUYSSTEEN, G.B. & PUTTKAMMER, M.J. 2007. Presentation delivered at the 8th Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association (Interspeech 2007), Antwerp.
Datagebaseerde Aspekte van Afrikaanse Reduplikasies.
VAN HUYSSTEEN, G.B. & WISSING, D.P. 2007. Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies, 25(3): 419-439.
Global and local durational properties in three varieties of South African English.
COETZEE, A.W. & WISSING, D.P. 2007. Linguistic Review, 24:263-289.
Gevorderde akoestiese korrelate van Afrikaanse klemtoon.
WISSING, D.P. 2007. Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies, 25.
Basiese akoestiese korrelate van klemtoon in Afrikaans
WISSING, D.P. 2007. Southern African Linguistics and applied Language Studies, 25:441-458.
Testing the use of Lessac's Tonal NRG as a voice building tool for female students at a South African University.
MUNRO, M & WISSING, D.P. 2007. Voice and Speech Review.
Automatic Parameter Selection for Effective Afrikaans Lemmatisation.
GROENEWALD, H.J., VAN HUYSSTEEN, G.B. & PUTTKAMMER, M.J. 2007. Presentation delivered at the Recent Advances in Natural Language Processing (RANLP) 2007, Borovets, Bulgaria.
Heroorweging van Fleksie in Afrikaans.
VAN HUYSSTEEN, G.B. & GROENEWALD, H. 2007. Voordrag gelewer by LVSA/SAALA/SAVTO 2007, Noordwes-Universiteit, Potchefstroomkampus, Potchefstroom, Suid-Afrika.
Requirements for Machine-Aided translation Tools.
VAN HUYSSTEEN, G.B. & GROENEWALD, H. 2007. Presentation delivered at LVSA/SAALA/SAVTO 2007, North-West University, Potchefstroom campus, Potchefstroom, South Africa.
Feature Selection and Parameter Optimisation for Effective Afrikaans Lemmatisation.
VAN HUYSSTEEN, G.B. & GROENEWALD, H. 2007. Presentation delivered at the International 17th Meeting of Computational Linguistics in the Netherlands (CLIN) 2007, University of Leuven, Leuven.
ʼn Fleksievormgenereerder.
PILON, S. 2007. Voordrag gelewer by LVSA/SAALA/SAVTO 2007, Noordwes-Universiteit, Potchefstroomkampus, Potchefstroom, Suid-Afrika.
MT for English-isiZulu/Afrikaans.
PILON, S. & PIENAAR, J.A. 2007. Presentation delivered at LVSA/SAALA/SAVTO 2007, North-West University, Potchefstroom campus, Potchefstroom, South Africa.
Lexicon Creation and Management: TurboAnnotate.
VAN HUYSSTEEN, G.B. & PUTTKAMMER, M.J. 2007. Presentation delivered at LVSA/SAALA/SAVTO 2007, North-West University, Potchefstroom campus, Potchefstroom, South Africa.
Developing Web-Based Word-Translators.
VAN HUYSSTEEN, G.B., PUTTKAMMER, M.J. & SCHLEMMER, M. 2007. Presentation delivered at LVSA/SAALA/SAVTO 2007, North-West University, Potchefstroom campus, Potchefstroom, South Africa.
Nadruk in Afrikaans: akoestiese kenmerke en metodologiese oorwegings by die vasstellings daarvan.
WISSING, D.P. 2007. Voordrag gelewer by LVSA/SAALA/SAVTO 2007, Noordwes-Universiteit, Potchefstroomkampus, Potchefstroom, Suid-Afrika.
More on acoustic correlates of stress.
WISSING, D.P. 2007. Presentation delivered at the 8th Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association (Interspeech 2007), Antwerp.
Software & Resources
Some information here about the software and resources we've worked on.