Research infrastructures for Human Language Technologies: A vision from France

The size of the effort in language science and technology has increased over the years, reflecting the complexity of this research area. The role of Language Resources and Language Technology Evaluation is now recognized as being crucial for the development of written and spoken language processing systems. Several initiatives have been taken in this framework, with a pioneering activity in the US starting in the mid 80s. In France, several programs may be reported, such as the Aupelf-Uref Francil network and the Techno-Langue national program. Despite the size of the effort and the success of those actions, they did not provide yet a permanent infrastructure. To be properly covered, the development of Language Technologies would require a better share of efforts between the European Commission and the Member States to address the major challenge of multilingualism in Europe, and worldwide.