Welsh Speaking Smart Home Devices

Welsh Government seeks to get language-dependent devices, such as Google Home and Amazon Echo to expand their repertoire to include Welsh.

09:56 06 November 2018

Google Home and Amazon Echo devices understand regional accents but neither support conversations nor commands in Welsh. This is something what the Welsh government’s language technology action plans hope to fix.

 

The plan aims to use technology to help teach and enhance the use of Welsh in homes, workplaces and schools. It highlights 18 work packages that explore the areas of work that can be done to use technology to preserve and expand the Welsh language, including improving computer-assisted translations. There are also plans to include constructing a list of Welsh-language ICT resources available for use in the workplace, creating interactive maps with Welsh-language place names and developing Welsh-language machine learning and conversational AI.

 

Eluned Morgan, minister for Welsh language and lifelong learning, said “Technology also provides many opportunities for us to increase our use of Welsh or to learn Welsh but to do this we need to have the correct infrastructure in place.

 

“Technology moves quickly. Welsh needs to move with technology. That is the aim of our Plan.”