梳理尼日利亚三大语言的低资源NLP研究现状,指出资源匮乏与数据复用问题。
NaijaNLP: A Survey of Nigerian Low-Resource Languages
- 首次系统综述豪萨语、约鲁巴语和伊博语的NLP进展
- 仅25.1%的研究贡献新语言资源,多数依赖已有数据复用
- 强调需加强标注与开源协作,尤其关注变音符号等语言特性
尼日利亚拥有超过500种语言,其中豪萨语、约鲁巴语和伊博语由超过1.75亿人使用,占语言总量的约60%。然而,这些语言因缺乏支持计算语言学任务的资源而被归为低资源语言。尽管已有诸多研究尝试开展相关NLP任务,但对语法形式化至复杂语言理解与生成任务所需资源的整体认知仍不清晰。本文首次对三大主要尼日利亚语言(统称NaijaNLP)的低资源NLP研究进行全面回顾。我们定量评估现有语言资源,并识别关键挑战。虽然近年来在豪萨语、伊博语和约鲁巴语上的下游任务研究不断增多,但仅有约25.1%的已评研究提供了新的语言资源。这一发现凸显了对已有数据的持续复用,而非生成高质量新资源。此外,如变音符号的准确表示等语言特异性挑战仍被忽视。为推动NaijaNLP及更广泛的低资源NLP发展,亟需加强资源建设、全面标注与开放协作机制。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
With over 500 languages in Nigeria, three languages -- Hausa, Yorùbá and Igbo -- spoken by over 175 million people, account for about 60% of the spoken languages. However, these languages are categorised as low-resource due to insufficient resources to support tasks in computational linguistics. Several research efforts and initiatives have been presented, however, a coherent understanding of the state of Natural Language Processing (NLP) - from grammatical formalisation to linguistic resources that support complex tasks such as language understanding and generation is lacking. This study presents the first comprehensive review of advancements in low-resource NLP (LR-NLP) research across the three major Nigerian languages (NaijaNLP). We quantitatively assess the available linguistic resources and identify key challenges. Although a growing body of literature addresses various NLP downstream tasks in Hausa, Igbo, and Yorùbá, only about 25.1% of the reviewed studies contribute new linguistic resources. This finding highlights a persistent reliance on repurposing existing data rather than generating novel, high-quality resources. Additionally, language-specific challenges, such as the accurate representation of diacritics, remain under-explored. To advance NaijaNLP and LR-NLP more broadly, we emphasise the need for intensified efforts in resource enrichment, comprehensive annotation, and the development of open collaborative initiatives.
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