2018/2028(INI) | [ParlTrack]

Draft opinion
Recital C

C. whereas multilingualism is one of Europe’s greatest assets and a founding principle of the European Union, but also one of its biggest challenges;

Amendment 12 #

Nadine MORANO

Draft opinion
Recital C a (new)

Ca. whereas multilingualism helps bring Europe closer to citizens, helps ensure they are better informed, and helps prevent the creation of a two-speed Europe: one for elite graduates with knowledge of foreign languages, and the other inaccessible to all the others who are however no less interested in the challenges that concern them;

Amendment 13 #

Draft opinion
Recital C a (new)

Ca. whereas the European Commission acknowledges that Digital Single Market must be Multilingual; whereas no common EU policy is proposed to address language barriers problem;

Amendment 14 #

João FERREIRA

Draft opinion
Recital C a (new)

Ca. whereas the EU and its institutions have a duty to enhance, promote and uphold linguistic diversity in Europe;

Amendment 15 #

Draft opinion
Recital D

D. whereas the penetration of cross border e-commerce is very low; whereas LTs can contribute to future European cross-border and cross- language communication, boost economic growth ~~and~~, social stability and strengthen EU competitiveness worldwide;

Amendment 16 #

Draft opinion
Recital D

D. whereas LTs can contribute to future European cross-border and cross- language communication, economic growth and social stability,upholding diversity and fostering cohesion and convergence;

Amendment 17 #

Draft opinion
Recital D

D. whereas LTs can contribute to future European cross-border and cross- language communication, economic growth and social stability and reduce natural barriers;

Amendment 18 #

Răzvan POPA

Draft opinion
Recital D a (new)

Da. whereas language technologies will facilitate communication and cooperation in other languages, allow speakers of other languages equal access to information and knowledge and improve IT network functionalities;

Amendment 19 #

Draft opinion
Recital E

E. whereas language makes up a very E. large part of the continuously growing Big Data treasure and whereas, by the same token, the fact of storing every language version is increasing the need for storage space many times over;

Amendment 2 #

Draft opinion
Recital A

A. whereas the European Union has 24 official languages and more than 60 national ~~and~~, regional as well as migrants’ languages;

Amendment 20 #

Draft opinion
Recital E a (new)

Ea. whereas difficulties in accessing linguistic data (including online data and research data sets) is constraining the technological development of language technologies;

Amendment 21 #

Draft opinion
Recital F

F. whereas technological mastery of human language could enable a wide range of innovative IT products and services in industry, commerce, government and administration, that are empowered and made possible by the enormous amount of data expressed in human language, and that can communicate with users in natural language;

Amendment 22 #

Draft opinion
Recital F

F. whereas technological mastery of human language could enable a wide range of innovative IT products and services in industry, commerce, government and administration, reducing both costs and natural barriers to the operation of the internal market, including the labour market;

Amendment 23 #

Draft opinion
Recital F

F. whereas technological mastery of human language could enable a wide range of innovative IT products and services in industry, commerce, services, government and administration;

Amendment 24 #

Draft opinion
Recital F

F. whereas technological mastery of human language could enable a wide range of innovative IT products and services in industry, research, commerce, government and administration;

Amendment 25 #

Draft opinion
Recital G

G. whereas Human Language Technologies (HLTs) in Europe are still far behind, owing to market fragmentation, uncoordinated research and insufficient funding, but they are developing rapidly and offer huge potential;

Amendment 26 #

João FERREIRA

Draft opinion
Recital G

G. whereas Human Language Technologies (HLTs) in Europe are still far behind, owing to ~~market fragmentation~~disinvestment in knowledge and culture, uncoordinated research and insufficient funding;

Amendment 27 #

Miapetra KUMPULA-NATRI, Dan NICA, Patrizia TOIA, Csaba MOLNÁR, Zigmantas BALČYTIS, Carlos ZORRINHO

Draft opinion
Recital G

G. whereas ~~Human~~ Language Technologies (HLTs) in Europe are still far behind, owing to market fragmentation, uncoordinated research ~~and~~, insufficient funding and legal barriers;

Amendment 28 #

Draft opinion
Recital G a (new)

Ga. whereas technological development is growingly language based and has consequences for growth and society, the need for more language aware policies is urgent. Not only technological, but genuinely multidisciplinary research and education on digital communication and language technologies and their relationship to growth and society is needed;

Amendment 29 #

Draft opinion
Recital G a (new)

Ga. whereas the availability of technological tools such as video games or educational applications in minority languages is pivotal for the development of language skills, especially in children;

Amendment 3 #

Draft opinion
Recital A

A. whereas the European Union has 24 official languages and more than 60 national ~~and~~, regional and sign languages;

Amendment 30 #

Draft opinion
Recital G a (new)

Ga. whereas, given that technological development can be impeded or brought to a standstill if it is path dependent, technological neutrality and a high degree of feedback must both be ensured when technology is being developed;

Amendment 31 #

Răzvan POPA

Draft opinion
Recital G a (new)

Ga. whereas European human language technologies constitute an enormous opportunity for the European Union both in economic terms and from a cultural perspective;

Amendment 32 #

Draft opinion
Recital G a (new)

Ga. whereas top players in Language Technologies are not Europeans and do not address the specific needs of Europe;

Amendment 33 #

Rolandas PAKSAS

Draft opinion
Recital G a (new)

Ga. whereas the Digital Single Market Strategy only makes a brief mention to multilingual services;

Amendment 34 #

Draft opinion
Recital G b (new)

Gb. whereas we have substantial breakthroughs in Artificial Intelligence; whereas Language technologies are essential to ensure that Artificial Intelligence is multilingual;

Amendment 35 #

Draft opinion
Paragraph -1 (new)

-1. Underlines that the Digital Single Market cannot be implemented without technological solutions to overcome language barriers; asks the Commission to develop a strong and coordinated strategy for the Multilingual Digital Single Market;

Amendment 36 #

Draft opinion
Paragraph 1

1. Strongly supports the creation of a coordinated initiative (“Human Language Project”) with a robust, large- scale and long-term funding scheme on HLTs with the ~~aim~~scientific goal of tackling dDeep nNatural lLanguage uUnderstanding atby 2030. The funding scheme needs to operate at the European, national and regional level, including the participation of research centres, academia, enterprises, in particular SMEs, and other relevant stakeholders; stresses that this project should be open, cloud-based and interoperable and provide highly scalable, high-performance and robust basic tools and platforms for several LT applications;

Amendment 37 #

Rolandas PAKSAS

Draft opinion
Paragraph 1

1. Supports the creation of a coordinated initiative with a robust, large- scale and long-term funding scheme on HLTs with the aim of tackling deep natural language understanding at European, national and regional level, including the participation of research centres, enterprises, in particular SMEs, and relevant stakeholders and increasing efficiency by sharing knowledge, infrastructure and resources; stresses that this project should be open, cloud-based and interoperable and provide highly scalable, high-performance and robust basic tools for several LT applications;

Amendment 38 #

Draft opinion
Paragraph 1

1. Supports the creation of a coordinated initiative with a robust, large- scale and long-term funding scheme on HLTs with the aim of tackling deep natural language understanding at European, national and regional level, including the participation of research centres, enterprises, in particular SMEs and start- ups, and relevant stakeholders; stresses that this project should be open, cloud-based and interoperable and provide highly scalable, high-performance and robust basic tools for several LT applications;

Amendment 39 #

Draft opinion
Paragraph 1

1. Supports the creation of a coordinated initiative with a ~~robust, large- scale and long-term~~sustainable funding scheme on HLTs with the aim of tackling deep natural language understanding at European, national and regional level, including the participation of research centres, enterprises, in particular SMEs, and relevant stakeholders; stresses that this project should be open, cloud-based and interoperable and provide highly scalable, high-performance and robust basic tools for several LT applications;

Amendment 4 #

Draft opinion
Recital B

B. whereas more than 20 European languages are in danger of digital language extinction; whereas Language Technologies (LTs) mplay ~~serve as a tool for~~an essential role in protecting and promoting linguistic diversity, especially for smaller and non- official languages;

Amendment 40 #

Draft opinion
Paragraph 1 a (new)

1a. Underlines that language barriers are hindering the achievement of an inclusive Digital Single Market; stresses, therefore, the need to ensure that citizens, consumers and businesses have the opportunity to grow the necessary skills to benefit from the Digital Single Market, in order to take concrete advantage of the growing supply of multiple interlinked and multi-lingual e-services, such as e- government, e-justice, e-health, e-energy and e-transport;

Amendment 41 #

Draft opinion
Paragraph 1 a (new)

1a. Notes the effort and dedication of volunteer driven localisation and internationalisation efforts in open source software development; recommends to ensure that any funding scheme for HLT can both work with and can be accessed by the open source communities;

Amendment 42 #

Draft opinion
Paragraph 1 a (new)

1a. Calls for earlier experience to be turned to account, one example being the development of the Internet and email as a university network internal communication tool, in order to ensure good-quality feedback, user-friendliness, and technological neutrality;

Amendment 43 #

Draft opinion
Paragraph 1 a (new)

1a. Stresses the necessity to reduce the technology gap between languages by strengthening the knowledge and technology transfer;

Amendment 44 #

Draft opinion
Paragraph 1 b (new)

1b. Stresses that cultural diversity in Europe, as well as multilingualism, could benefit from cross-border access to content, in particular for educational purposes;

Amendment 45 #

Draft opinion
Paragraph 2

2. ~~Urges the development of actions and appropriate funding with the aim of enabling and empower~~Supports the actions aimed at enabling European SMEs to easily have access and use LTs in order to grow their businesses online~~, thereby boosting their levels of innovation and creating job~~ by accessing new markets and development opportunities;

Amendment 46 #

Miapetra KUMPULA-NATRI, Dan NICA, Patrizia TOIA, Csaba MOLNÁR, Zigmantas BALČYTIS, Carlos ZORRINHO

Draft opinion
Paragraph 2

2. Urges the development of actions and appropriate funding with the aim of enabling and empowering European SMEs and start-ups to easily have access and use LTs in order to grow their businesses online, thereby boosting their levels of innovation and creating jobs;

Amendment 47 #

Draft opinion
Paragraph 2 a (new)

2a. Urges the Commission to set up a HLT financing platform drawing lessons from the current experiences in FP7, Horizon 2020 and CEF; in addition, the Commission should put emphasis on research areas needed for ensuring a deep language understanding such as computational linguistics, linguistics, artificial intelligence, language technology, computer science, and cognitive science;

Amendment 48 #

Miapetra KUMPULA-NATRI, Dan NICA, Patrizia TOIA, Csaba MOLNÁR, Zigmantas BALČYTIS, Carlos ZORRINHO

Draft opinion
Paragraph 2 b (new)

2b. Stresses the role of EU, Member States, universities and other public institutions in contributing on to a preservation of their languages in the digital world and in developing databases and translation technologies for all EU languages, including smaller languages; calls for coordination between research and industry with a common vision of enhancing the digital possibilities for language translation , and with an open access to data, needed for technological advancement;

Amendment 49 #

Miapetra KUMPULA-NATRI, Dan NICA, Patrizia TOIA, Csaba MOLNÁR, Zigmantas BALČYTIS, Carlos ZORRINHO

Draft opinion
Paragraph 2 c (new)

2c. Notes that current digital tools and resources for smaller languages, including digital availability of all orthographies and means of sign language translation and digitalisation, are insufficient, hence calls for promoting the technology development for smaller European languages;

Amendment 5 #

Nadine MORANO

Draft opinion
Recital B

B. whereas more than 20 European languages are in danger of digital language extinction; whereas Llanguage Ttechnologies (LTs) may serve as a tool for protecting and promoting ~~smaller and~~ non- official languages;

Amendment 50 #

Miapetra KUMPULA-NATRI, Dan NICA, Patrizia TOIA, Csaba MOLNÁR, Zigmantas BALČYTIS, Carlos ZORRINHO

Draft opinion
Paragraph 2 d (new)

2d. Notes that there is a widening gap between English and other EU languages in technology, and that this leads to inequality of access to information between age groups, different regions and Member States, as well as between people with higher and lower education; stresses that by making the content available on different EU languages inequality would be reduced;

Amendment 51 #

Miapetra KUMPULA-NATRI, Dan NICA, Patrizia TOIA, Csaba MOLNÁR, Zigmantas BALČYTIS, Carlos ZORRINHO

Draft opinion
Paragraph 2 e (new)

2e. Points to the fact that language can be a barrier to the transfer of scientific knowledge, hence urges the Commission to seek solutions to ensure that scientific knowledge is made available in other languages than English;

Amendment 52 #

Miapetra KUMPULA-NATRI, Dan NICA, Patrizia TOIA, Csaba MOLNÁR, Zigmantas BALČYTIS, Carlos ZORRINHO

Draft opinion
Paragraph 2 f (new)

2f. Notes the positive aspect of open source and open software systems which would benefits EU citizens, since the commercial algorithms are not public whereas open source algorithms are open for anyone to review as well as participate in developing the technology further, which in turn helps to keep the machine languages up to date and alive;

Amendment 53 #

Miapetra KUMPULA-NATRI, Dan NICA, Patrizia TOIA, Csaba MOLNÁR, Zigmantas BALČYTIS, Carlos ZORRINHO

Draft opinion
Paragraph 2 g (new)

2g. Notes the sensitive nature of some parts of the translation systems which could not be left to the commercial companies and their the free-to-use programs for personal data and privacy reasons, as it is unclear how the companies would use the knowledge gathered through the translation programs in for example translating health data;

Amendment 54 #

Miapetra KUMPULA-NATRI, Dan NICA, Patrizia TOIA, Csaba MOLNÁR, Zigmantas BALČYTIS, Carlos ZORRINHO

Draft opinion
Paragraph 2 h (new)

2h. Notes that cross sectional research and studies are needed on the consequences of language minorisation in the digital world and its effects on equality and in the access to information;

Amendment 55 #

Angelo CIOCCA, Lorenzo FONTANA

Draft opinion
Paragraph 3

3. Supports the development of multilingual public services in European, national, regional and local administrations with innovative, inclusive and assistive HLTs, which will reduce inequalities among languages, promote equal access to services and ~~stimulate the mobility of businesses, citizens and workers in Europe~~foster multilingualism among citizens, with a special focus on regional and minority languages.

Amendment 56 #

Draft opinion
Paragraph 3

3. Supports the development of multilingual public services in European, national, and, - where appropriate - regional and local administrations with innovative, inclusive and assistive HLTs, which will reduce inequalities among languages, promote equal access to services and stimulate the mobility of businesses, citizens and workers in Europe.;

Amendment 57 #

Miapetra KUMPULA-NATRI, Dan NICA, Patrizia TOIA, Csaba MOLNÁR, Zigmantas BALČYTIS, Carlos ZORRINHO

Draft opinion
Paragraph 3

3. Supports the development of multilingual public services in European, national, regional and local administrations with innovative, inclusive and assistive HLTs, which will reduce inequalities among languages and language communities, promote equal access to services and stimulate the mobility of businesses, citizens and workers in Europe.;

Amendment 58 #

Nadine MORANO

Draft opinion
Paragraph 3

3. Supports the development of multilingual public services in European, national, regional and local administrations with innovative, inclusive and assistive HLTs, which will reduce inequalities among languages, promote equal access to services and stimulate the mobility of businesses, citizens and workers in Europe.;

Amendment 59 #

Draft opinion
Paragraph 3 a (new)

3a. Notes that language technology is first available in English; is aware that large global and European manufacturers and companies often develop language technology also for the major European languages with relatively large markets: Spanish, French and German (already these languages lack some resources in some sub-areas);stresses however, that general EU level action (policy, funding, research & education) should be taken to ensure the development of Language Technology for small and middle-sized official EU languages and special EU level actions (policy, funding, research and education) should take place to include and encourage regional and minority languages in such development;

Amendment 6 #

Miapetra KUMPULA-NATRI, Dan NICA, Patrizia TOIA, Csaba MOLNÁR, Zigmantas BALČYTIS, Carlos ZORRINHO

Draft opinion
Recital B a (new)

Ba. whereas according to Unesco only 30-50% of the online content worldwide is in English; and whereas high-quality machine translation and computer-aided translation will help to overcome language barriers and improve cross- lingual information access;

Amendment 60 #

Draft opinion
Paragraph 3 a (new)

3a. Draws attention that the fact that most of journals included in the Web of Science (WoS) publish in English together with institutional policies that advance the English-medium publishing agenda create a major shift in the creation and distribution of academic knowledge, since exporting research produced in local contexts for global, English-speaking audiences may hinder the development of local research cultures and societies more broadly; stresses the necessity to reflect these conditions of knowledge production in European research and innovation policies and programmes and to support development of artificial intelligence for natural language processing benefiting the scientific community;

Amendment 61 #

Draft opinion
Paragraph 3 a (new)

3a. Insists on the necessity to make better use of new technological approaches, based on increased computational power and better access to sizeable amounts of data, fostering the development of deep-learning neural networks that are making Human Language Technologies a real solution to overcome language barriers; calls, therefore, the Commission to safeguard sufficient funding to support such technological development;

Amendment 62 #

Draft opinion
Paragraph 3 a (new)

3a. Notes that languages with a smaller user base need proper support from a number of involved parties, including type foundries for diacritical marks, keyboard manufacturers and content management systems in order to properly store, process and display content in such languages; Requests the European Commission to assess how such support can be instigated and be made a recommendation in the procurement process within the EU;

Amendment 63 #

Draft opinion
Paragraph 3 a (new)

3a. Underlines the necessity to strengthen the collaboration between the industry and data owners; stresses the need to adapt the regulatory framework and ensures more open, interoperable use and collection of language resources;

Amendment 64 #

Draft opinion
Paragraph 3 b (new)

3b. Recommends that the minimum language resources, as referred to in paragraph [10] should be made available and maintained as a public sector information, reuse of such resources needs to be possible for everyone; Requests the European Commission to refrain from the introduction of legislation in the field of copyright that would prevent researchers, individuals and any reuser from compiling or processing information; recommends that in order to preserve the written and spoken cultural heritage of lesser-used languages and those languages facing digital extinction and to encourage their reuse, faithful reproductions in full or in part of that work, regardless of the mode of reproduction and including digitisation, shall equally not be subject to copyright or related rights;

Amendment 65 #

Draft opinion
Paragraph 3 b (new)

3b. Believes that ICT integrators in the EU should be granted economic incentives to accelerate the provision of cloud-based services, in order to allow a smooth integration of Human Language Technologies in their e-commerce applications, in particular to ensure that SMEs reap the benefits of automated translation;

Amendment 66 #

Draft opinion
Paragraph 3 b (new)

3b. Stresses that Europe has to secure its leadership position in the field of language centric Artificial Intelligence; reminds that EU companies are the best placed to provide solutions tailored to our specific culture, societal and economical demand;

Amendment 67 #

Draft opinion
Paragraph 3 c (new)

3c. Highlights the importance of text and data mining techniques for the development of HLTs in areas such as speech to text recognition, machine translation and computational linguistics, considers that text and data mining techniques should therefore be made as widely available as possible, including for civil society organisations and businesses, following the principle “the right to read is the right to mine”;

Amendment 68 #

Draft opinion
Paragraph 3 d (new)

3d. Calls upon the European Commission to financially support the subtitling, dubbing and translation of video games and software applications into minority languages;

Amendment 69 #

Angelo CIOCCA, Lorenzo FONTANA

Draft opinion
Paragraph 3 e (new)

3e. Calls upon the European Commission and Member States to financially support projects that develop, collect and promote best resources, including keyboard layouts, dictionaries, translation software and best practices for the use of languages facing the threat of digital extinction.

Amendment 7 #

Draft opinion
Recital B a (new)

Ba. whereas digital technologies and platforms are gradually taking on a significant role in the revitalisation of endangered regional and minority languages;

Amendment 8 #

Draft opinion
Recital C

C. whereas multilingualism is one of Europe’s greatest assets, but also one of its biggest challenges, since it creates natural barriers to the operation of the single market and increases the EU’s administrative costs;

Amendment 9 #

Draft opinion
Recital C

C. whereas multilingualism is one of Europe’s greatest assets, but also one of its biggest challenges, and whereas multilingualism should not be undermined by the emergence of the European gigabit society;

source: 619.327

2018/04/11 CULT 134 amendments...

Amendment 1 #

Motion for a resolution
Citation 2 a (new)

- having regard to the 2003 UNESCO Convention for the safeguarding of the intangible cultural heritage,

Amendment 10 #

Motion for a resolution
Recital A a (new)

A a. whereas, there is a significant linguistic divide in cyberspace today that further exacerbates the existing digital divide within the EU;

Amendment 100 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 13

13. Recommends the creation of a European language technology platform with representatives from all official or co- official European languages that enables the sharing of language technology-related resources;

Amendment 101 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 14

14. Recommends ~~the extension of the EU-funded~~establishing or extending projects such as, among others, Digital Language Diversity Project, t~~o cover~~hat carry out research into the digital needs of all European l~~esser-used language~~anguages, including those with very small numbers of speakers to those with very large numbers of speakers, so as to address the digital divide issue and help prepare these languages for a sustainable digital future;

Amendment 102 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 14

14. Recommends the extension of the EU-funded Digital Language Diversity Project to cover research into the digital needs of all official or co-official European lesser-used languages, so as to address the digital divide issue and help prepare these languages for a digital future;

Amendment 103 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 14

14. Recommends the extension of the EU-funded Digital Language Diversity Project to cover research into the digital needs of all European lesser-used languages and sign languages, so as to address the digital divide issue and help prepare these languages for a digital future;

Amendment 104 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 15

15. Recommends an update of the META-NET White Paper Series, published in 2012 in the form of a pan- European survey on the status of language technologies ~~and~~ ,resources for all European languages, information about language barriers and policies related to the topic, and thus provides the possibility to assess and develop language technology policies;

Amendment 105 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 15

15. Recommends a pan-European survey on the status of language technologies and resources for all official or co-official European languages;

Amendment 106 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 15

15. Recommends a pan-European survey on the status of language technologies and resources for all European languages and sign languages;

Amendment 107 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 15 a (new)

15 a. Draws attention that since most of journals included in the Web of Science (WoS) publish in English and institutional policies advance the English- medium publishing agenda this creates a major shift in the creation and distribution of academic knowledge, because exporting research produced in local contexts for global, English- speaking audiences may hinder the development of local research cultures and societies more broadly; stresses the necessity to reflect these conditions of knowledge production in European research and innovation policies and to support development of artificial intelligence for natural language processing benefiting the scientific community;

Amendment 108 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 16

16. Believes that owing to the current situation whereby non-European actors dominate the market in language technologies, European education policies should aim at retaining talent in Europe, should analyse the current educational needs related to language technology and, based on this, provide guidelines for the implementation of cohesive joint action at European level, and should raise awareness among schoolchildren and students of the career opportunities in the language technology industry;

Amendment 109 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 16

16. Believes that owing to the current situation whereby non-European actors dominate the market in language technologies, European education policies should aim at retaining talent in Europe, which means offering rewarding career prospects for European researchers in these fields, should analyse the current educational needs related to language technology, and should raise awareness among schoolchildren and students of the career opportunities in the language technology industry;

Amendment 11 #

Motion for a resolution
Recital A b (new)

A b. whereas according to the Special Eurobarometer 386 "Europeans and their languages", just over half of Europeans (54%) are able to hold a conversation in at least one additional language, a quarter (25%) are able to speak at least two additional languages and one in ten (10%) are conversant in at least three;

Amendment 110 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 16

16. Believes that owing to the current situation whereby non-European actors dominate the market in language technologies, European education policies should aim at retaining talent in Europe, should analyse the current educational needs related to language technology (including all involved fields and disciplines), and should raise awareness among schoolchildren and students of the career opportunities in the language technology and language-centric AI industry;

Amendment 111 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 16 a (new)

16a. Stresses that language technologies will have a major impact on the translation and interpreting professions, which will need to offer added value over and above simple formal translation, that this professional transition will need to be managed by the public authorities and professional organisations and that, in particular, degree courses should be offered which meet these new requirements and ongoing training should possibly be established;

Amendment 112 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 16 a (new)

16 a. Strongly believes that one of the major role of the EU is to guarantee equality among all the official languages; recalls that despite the difference in the teaching, evaluation and recognition of language skills in different Member States, the lack of offer of end of school exams in other European languages other than the 5 main languages (English, French, German, Spanish and Italian) continues to discriminate schoolchildren whose mother tongue is one of the lesser- spoken languages within the EU;

Amendment 113 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 17

17. Proposes that the Commission and Member States promote, as far as possible and financially feasible, the use of language technologies within cultural and educational exchanges between European citizens such as Erasmus+, with the aim of reducing the barriers that linguistic diversity can pose to intercultural dialogue, especially in written and audiovisual expression; points out, nevertheless, that language technologies, at their current state of development, cannot replace the effective learning of foreign languages, which remains a prerequisite for integrating socially and professionally into the societies of the Member States;

Amendment 114 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 17

17. Proposes that the Commission and Member States promote the use of language technologies within cultural and educational exchanges between European citizens such as Erasmus+, ~~with the aim of reducing the barriers that linguistic diversity can pose to intercultural dialogue,~~ especially in written and audiovisual expression;

Amendment 115 #

Michaela ŠOJDROVÁ, Santiago FISAS AYXELÀ, Milan ZVER, Bogdan Brunon WENTA

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 17

17. Proposes that the Commission and Member States promote the use of language technologies within cultural and educational exchanges between European citizens such as Erasmus+, with the aim of reducing the barriers that linguistic diversity can pose to intercultural dialogue, especially in written and audiovisual expression and in assitive technology for the deaf and hard of hearing and the blind and visually impaired;

Amendment 116 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 17

17. Proposes that the Commission and Member States promote the use of language technologies within cultural and educational exchanges between European citizens such as Erasmus+, such as the Erasmus+ Online Linguistic Support, with the aim of reducing the barriers that linguistic diversity can pose to intercultural dialogue, especially in written and audiovisual expression;

Amendment 117 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 17

17. Proposes that the Commission and Member States promote the use of language technologies, as well as specific sign technologies within cultural and educational exchanges between European citizens such as Erasmus+, with the aim of reducing the barriers that linguistic diversity can pose to intercultural dialogue, especially in written and audiovisual expression;

Amendment 118 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 17

17. Proposes that the Commission and Member States promote the use of language technologies within cultural and educational exchanges between European citizens such as Erasmus+, with the aim of reducing the barriers that linguistic diversity can pose to intercultural dialogue and mutual understanding, especially in written and audiovisual expression;

Amendment 119 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 18

18. Recommends that Member States develop digital literacy programmes and introduce language technology training and tools in the curricula of their schools, universities and vocational colleges; further stresses the fact that literacy remains a significant factor and an absolute prerequisite for making progress in the digital inclusion of communities;

Amendment 12 #

Motion for a resolution
Recital B

B. whereas there are 24 official languages and more than 60 national and regional languages, in ~~the European Union~~cluding the various national sign languages which are an important facet of Europe's linguistic heritage; whereas multilingualism presents one of the greatest assets of cultural diversity in Europe and, at the same time, one of the most significant challenges for the creation of a truly integrated EU;

Amendment 120 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 18

Amendment 121 #

Andrea BOCSKOR

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 18

18. Recommends that Member States also develop digital literacy programmes in Europe's minority and regional languages and introduce language technology training and tools in the curricula of their schools, universities and vocational colleges;

Amendment 122 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 18 a (new)

18 a. Points out that linguistic, literature and cultural studies should not remain only within the preserve of students in the humanities, but extend to other areas of national priority, including STEM, since this knowledge is critical for development of efficient language technologies which properly reflect particularities of languages and cultures such as phraseology, terms of respect and historical connotations and prevents the shallowing of languages;

Amendment 123 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 18 a (new)

18 a. Calls on Member States to boost the use of multiple languages in digital services such as mobile applications;

Amendment 124 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 19

19. Underlines the need to foster and support the development of investment instruments and accelerator programmes that aim at increasing the use of language technologies in the cultural and creative sector, especially targeting less-resourced communities - including communities of the deaf - and encouraging the development of language technology capacities in areas where the sector is weaker;

Amendment 125 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 19

19. Underlines the need to foster and support the development of investment instruments and accelerator programmes that aim at increasing the use of language technologies in the cultural and creative sector, especially targeting less-resourced ~~communiti~~official or co-official European languages and encouraging the development of language technology capacities in areas where the sector is weaker;

Amendment 126 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 20

20. Calls on the EU institutions to raise awareness of the benefits for companies, public bodies and citizens of the availability of online services, content and products in multiple languages, including official or co-official European lesser- used languages, with a view to overcoming language barriers and to the preservation of the cultural heritage of language communities;

Amendment 127 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 20

20. Calls on the EU institutions to raise awareness of the benefits for companies, public bodies and citizens of the availability of online services, content and products in multiple languages, including lesser-used, regional and minority languages, with a view to overcoming language barriers and to the preservation of the cultural heritage of language communities;

Amendment 128 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 20

20. Calls on the EU institutions to raise awareness of the benefits for companies, public bodies and citizens of the availability of online services, content and products in multiple languages, including lesser-used languages, with a view to overcoming language barriers and to thelp preserv~~ation of~~e the cultural heritage of language communities;

Amendment 129 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 21

21. Calls on administrations at all levels to improve access to online services and information in different languages, and to use already existing language technology such as machine translation, speech recognition and text-to-speech as well as intelligent linguistic systems, such as those performing multilingual information retrieval, summarising/abstracting and speech understanding, while fully respecting the right of translation of authors, in order to improve the accessibility of those services;

Amendment 13 #

Motion for a resolution
Recital B

B. whereas there are 24 official languages and more than 60 national and regional languages in the European Union; whereas multilingualism presents one of the greatest assets of cultural diversity in Europe and, at the same time, ~~one of the most significant challenges for the creation of a truly integrated EU~~makes optimal mobility of people within the EU impossible, particularly as regards professional mobility;

Amendment 130 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 21

21. Calls on administrations at all levels to improve access to online services and information in different languages, especially for services in cross-border regions and for culture-related issues, and to use already existing language technology such as machine translation, speech recognition and text-to-speech, in order to improve the accessibility of those services;

Amendment 131 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 21

21. Calls on administrations at all levels to improve access to online services and information in different languages, and to use already existing language technology such as machine translation, speech recognition and text-to-speech as well as assitive technology for the deaf and hard of hearing and the blind and visually impaired, in order to improve the accessibility of those services;

Amendment 132 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 21

21. Calls on administrations ~~at all levels~~ to improve access to online services and information in different ~~languages~~official or co-official languages of the country concerned, and to use already existing language technology such as machine translation, speech recognition and text-to-speech, in order to improve the accessibility of those services;

Amendment 133 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 21

21. Calls on administrations at all levels to improve access to online services and information in different languages, ~~and to use~~using already existing free and open- source language technology such as machine translation, speech recognition and text-to-speech, in order to improve the accessibility of those services without incurring in any additional costs;

Amendment 134 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 21 a (new)

21 a. Highlights the importance of text and data mining techniques for the development of language technologies; considers that text and data mining techniques should therefore be made as widely available as possible, including for civil society organisations and businesses;

Amendment 14 #

Motion for a resolution
Recital B

B. whereas there are 24 official languages and more than 60 national and regional languages in the European Union, and whereas under the UNCRPD there are many state-recognised sign languages in existence; whereas multilingualism presents one of the greatest assets of cultural diversity in Europe and, at the same time, one of the most significant challenges for the creation of a truly integrated EU;

Amendment 15 #

Motion for a resolution
Recital B

B. whereas there are 24 official languages and more than 60 national ~~and~~, regional or minority languages in the European Union; whereas multilingualism presents one of the greatest assets of cultural diversity in Europe and, at the same time, one of the most significant challenges for the creation of a truly integrated EU;

Amendment 16 #

Motion for a resolution
Recital B

B. whereas there are 24 official languages and more than 60 national and regional languages in the European Union; whereas multilingualism presents one of the greatest assets of cultural diversity in Europe and, at the same time, one of the most significant challenges for the ~~crea~~well- functioning of ~~a truly integrated EU~~the EU common policies;

Amendment 17 #

Motion for a resolution
Recital B

B. whereas there are 24 official languages and more than 60 national and regional and sign languages in the European Union; whereas multilingualism presents one of the greatest assets of cultural diversity in Europe and, at the same time, one of the most significant challenges for the creation of a truly integrated EU;

Amendment 18 #

Motion for a resolution
Recital B a (new)

B a. whereas support for local communities, such as indigenous, rural or remote communities, in overcoming geographical, social and economic obstacles to broadband access is a crucial prerequisite for efficient multilingualism policy at European level;

Amendment 19 #

Motion for a resolution
Recital B b (new)

B b. whereas recalls that 400 million users around the world use Cyrillic and they should be able to use it without barriers in the cyberspace as well;

Amendment 2 #

Motion for a resolution
Citation 8 a (new)

- having regard to its resolution of 24 March 2009 on Multilingualism: an asset for Europe and a shared commitment5 a, _________________ 5a¹Texts adopted, P7_TA_PROV(2009)0162

Amendment 20 #

Motion for a resolution
Recital C

C. whereas multilingualism comes under the scope of a series of EU policy areas, including culture, lifelong learning, employment, social inclusion, competitiveness, youth, civil society, research and media~~; whereas more attention needs to be paid to removing barriers to~~, in which EU action complements the action of the Member States; whereas intercultural and interlinguistic dialogue is essential;

Amendment 21 #

Motion for a resolution
Recital C

C. whereas multilingualism comes under the scope of a series of EU policy areas, including culture, lifelong learning, employment, social inclusion, competitiveness, youth, civil society, research and media; whereas more attention needs to be paid to removing barriers to intercultural and interlinguistic dialogue while also promoting individual multilingualism;

Amendment 22 #

Motion for a resolution
Recital C

C. whereas multilingualism comes under the scope of a series of EU policy areas, including education, culture, lifelong learning, employment, social inclusion, competitiveness, youth, civil society, research and media; whereas more attention needs to be paid to removing barriers to intercultural and interlinguistic dialogue with a view to stimulating mutual understanding;

Amendment 23 #

Motion for a resolution
Recital C

C. whereas multilingualism comes under the scope of a series of EU policy areas, including culture, economy, digital single market, lifelong learning, employment, social inclusion, competitiveness, youth, civil society, mobility, research and media; whereas more attention needs to be paid to removing barriers to intercultural and interlinguistic dialogue;

Amendment 24 #

Motion for a resolution
Recital C

C. whereas multilingualism comes under the scope of a series of EU policy areas, including culture, lifelong learning, employment, social inclusion, competitiveness, youth, civil society, research and media; whereas more attention needs to be paid to removing barriers to intercultural and interlinguistic dialogue, including dialogue in sign languages;

Amendment 25 #

Motion for a resolution
Recital C

C. whereas multilingualism comes under the scope of a series of EU policy areas, including culture, lifelong learning, employment, social inclusion, competitiveness, business, youth, civil society, research and media; whereas more attention needs to be paid to removing barriers to intercultural and interlinguistic dialogue;

Amendment 26 #

Motion for a resolution
Recital D

D. whereas language technologies are used in ~~many~~practically all everyday digital products and services, since most use language to some extent (especially all internet-related products such as search engines, social networks, e-commerce services);

Amendment 27 #

Silvia COSTA

Motion for a resolution
Recital D a (new)

Da. whereas the use of language technologies has not only contributed to the increasing digitalisation of major economic, social and cultural sectors such as e-commerce, communication via social networks, the exchange of cultural content and the increasingly widespread dissemination of pan-European public services, but has also had a burgeoning impact on sectors of fundamental importance to the everyday well-being of European citizens such as education, culture and health, not least in the perspective of creating an inclusive intercultural society with a particular focus on the immigrant population;

Amendment 28 #

Motion for a resolution
Recital D a (new)

D a. whereas only 16% of European citizens have purchased online from other EU countries in 2015;

Amendment 29 #

Motion for a resolution
Recital E

E. whereas fulfil~~ling~~ment of the Barcelona objective of enabling citizens to communicate well in their mother tongue plus two other languages is far from satisfactory, even if meeting that objective would give people more opportunities to access culture and to participate as citizens; whereas additional means and tools, especially those provided by language technologies, ~~are key to managing European multilingualism properly~~including simultaneous translation technologies, can facilitate the movement of goods, services and capital within the EU but cannot replace command of languages, which will always be essential for people to assimilate into the society of another country and to integrate into that country's labour market;

Amendment 3 #

Motion for a resolution
Citation 9 a (new)

- having regard to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, ratified by the EU in 2010,

Amendment 30 #

Motion for a resolution
Recital E

E. whereas fulfilling the Barcelona objective of enabling citizens to communicate well in their mother tongue plus two other languages would give people more opportunities to access cultureal, educational and scientific content in digital form and to participate as citizens; whereas additional means and tools, especially those provided by language technologies, are key to managing European multilingualism properly;

Amendment 31 #

Motion for a resolution
Recital E

E. whereas fulfilling the Barcelona objective of enabling citizens to communicate well in their mother tongue plus two other languages would give people more opportunities to access culture and to participate as citizens; whereas additional means and tools, especially those provided by language technologies, are key to managing European multilingualism properly and to promoting individual multilingualism;

Amendment 32 #

Motion for a resolution
Recital E

E. whereas fulfilling the Barcelona objective of enabling citizens to communicate well in their mother tongue plus two other languages would give people more opportunities to access culture, to access the digital single market and to participate as citizens; whereas additional means and tools, especially those provided by language technologies, are key to managing European multilingualism properly;

Amendment 33 #

Motion for a resolution
Recital E a (new)

Ea. whereas since the Barcelona objectives were drawn up in 2002, bilingualism has not really advanced in Europe, which remains divided between countries where the population is strongly bilingual or multilingual, notably Luxembourg and certain Scandinavian countries, and other highly monolingual countries, such as France, where even command of English is stagnating, and whereas multilingualism cannot be a universal objective, but must be tailored to the needs, especially the professional needs, of the population of each Member State;

Amendment 34 #

Motion for a resolution
Recital E a (new)

E a. whereas there is a close link between basic education and ICT access;

Amendment 35 #

Motion for a resolution
Recital E b (new)

Eb. whereas under the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, in particular Articles 165 and 166 thereof, the Member States are responsible for educational policy, particularly as regards their language strategies, and whereas for their own political or trade reasons they may choose to promote the learning of certain foreign languages, including certain non-EU languages, such as Japanese, Mandarin or Russian, and whereas, for that reason, the language policy of the Member States cannot have as its primary objective the strengthening of European cohesion and the single market;

Amendment 36 #

Motion for a resolution
Recital E c (new)

Ec. whereas in 2013 the British Council published a study on language learning in the United Kingdom, which highlighted the need to develop the learning of certain globally important languages, including Mandarin, Japanese and Russian, and whereas the development of the learning of these languages is particularly important for the Member States politically, strategically and economically but will necessarily compete with the learning of EU languages;

Amendment 37 #

Motion for a resolution
Recital F

F. whereas the fast pace of development in language technologies offers new opportunities for digital communication in all European and non- European languages, but whereas the level of development of these language technologies is not sufficient to cover all aspects of human communication and certainly cannot replace the effective learning of a foreign languages;

Amendment 38 #

Motion for a resolution
Recital F

F. whereas the fast pace of development in language technologies and language-centric Artificial Intelligence offers new opportunities for digital communication, digitally-enhanced communication and technology-enabled communication in all European languages (and beyond);

Amendment 39 #

Motion for a resolution
Recital F

F. whereas the fast pace of development in language technologies offers new opportunities for digital communication in all European languages and sign languages;

Amendment 4 #

Motion for a resolution
Citation 12 a (new)

- having regard to the Recommendation concerning the Promotion and Use of Multilingualism and Universal Access to Cyberspace adopted by the UNESCO General Conference at its 32nd session in Paris on 15 October 2003,

Amendment 40 #

Motion for a resolution
Recital F a (new)

F a. whereas, all European citizens should have access to the multilingual Internet;

Amendment 41 #

Motion for a resolution
Recital G

G. whereas the common European values of cooperation, solidarity, equality, recognition and respect should mean that all citizens have full and equal access to ~~new~~digital technologies, which would not only improve European cohesiveness and wellbeing but also enable the multilingual digital single market;

Amendment 42 #

Motion for a resolution
Recital G

G. whereas the common European values of cooperation, solidarity, recognition and respect should mean that all citizens have full and equal access to the most needed and most widespread new technologies, which would improve European cohesiveness and wellbeing;

Amendment 43 #

Motion for a resolution
Recital G a (new)

G a. whereas the availability of technological tools such as video games or educational applications in minority and lesser-used languages is pivotal for the development of language skills, especially in children;

Amendment 44 #

Motion for a resolution
Recital G a (new)

G a. whereas, speakers of lesser-spoken European languages need to be able to express themselves in culturally meaningful ways and to create their own cultural content in local languages;

Amendment 45 #

Motion for a resolution
Recital H

H. whereas ~~the emergence of~~new methods such as deep learning, based on increased computational power and access to vast amounts of data, ~~are making language technologies a real solution for~~require substantial further development to be able to understand complex information, but can nevertheless help to overcom~~ing~~e language barriers;

Amendment 46 #

Motion for a resolution
Recital H

H. whereas the emergence of ~~methods such as deep learning, based on increased computational power and access to vast amounts of data,~~new approaches and methods are making language technologies a ~~real~~viable solution for overcoming language barriers;

Amendment 47 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 1

1. Regrets that in Europe there is currently a widening technology gap between well-resourced languages and less-resourced languages, whether the latter are official~~, co-official~~ or ~~non~~co-official in the EU; whereas some of the latter may already be facing digital extinction; notes that the prevalence of English as a lingua franca, particularly in the European institutions, contributes to the lack of representation of all other languages, even when such dominance is no longer justified, especially in the light of the United Kingdom's imminent exit from the European Union;

Amendment 48 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 1

1. Regrets that in Europe there is currently a widening technology gap between well-resourced languages and less-resourced languages, whether the latter are official, co-official or non-official in the EU; whereas some of the latter may already be facing digital extinction; underlines the fact that in countries such as Hungary, Spain, Portugal and Bulgaria less than 20% of the population is able to speak English;

Amendment 49 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 1

1. Regrets that due to the lack of adequate policy in Europe there is currently a widening technology gap between well-resourced languages and less-resourced languages, whether the latter are official, co-official or non-official in the EU; whereas some of the latter may already be facing digital extinction;

Amendment 5 #

Motion for a resolution
Citation 12 b (new)

- having regard to the Special Eurobarometer 386 "Europeans and their Languages" published in June 2012,

Amendment 50 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 1 a (new)

1 a. Points out that digital technology has had a significant impact on language evolution in the last decade which is still hard to evaluate; recommends to policy makers to seriously consider studies showing that digital communication is eroding the literacy skills of young adults leading to grammar and literacy barriers between generations and a general language depletion; is of opinion that digital communication should serve to broaden, enrich and advance languages and that these developments should be reflected in national literacy education and literacy policies;

Amendment 51 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 2

2. Stresses that European lesser-used languages are significantly disadvantaged owing to an acute lack of tools and resources and the natural trend of the internet to favour languages with the largest number of readers worldwide, as well as a lack of researchers with the necessary technological skills, despite the fact that speakers of these languages gain the most from language technologies;

Amendment 52 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 2

2. Stresses that the increased use of European lesser-used languages arend sign languages is significantly disadvantaged owing to an acute lack of tools and resources, as well as a lack of researchers with the necessary technological skills, despite the fact that speakers of these languages gain the most from language technologies;

Amendment 53 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 2

2. Stresses that European lesser-used languages are significantly disadvantaged owing to an acute lack of tools and resources, lack of funding for research, as well as a lack of researchers with the necessary technological skills, despite the fact that speakers of these languages gain the most from language technologies;

Amendment 54 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 2

2. Stresses that European lesser-used languages are significantly disadvantaged owing to an acute lack of tools and resources, ~~as well as a lack of~~which restricts and narrows the scope of the work done by researchers who, even with the necessary technological skills, ~~despite the fact that speakers of these languages gain the most from~~are unable to derive the full benefit of language technologies;

Amendment 55 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 3

3. Notes the deepening digital divide between widely-used and lesser-used languages, and draws attention, given the increasing digitalisation of European society, for example in public service provision, to the rights and access issues that this will lead to, particularly for the elderly and those on low incomes; stresses the need for the European institutions to translate all the information they make available online into all the official languages of the EU, or at least into the three working languages;

Amendment 56 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 3

3. Notes the deepening digital divide between widely-used and lesser-used languages, and draws attention, given the increasing digitalisation of European society, for example in public service provision, to the rights and access issues that this will lead to, particularly for the low-skilled, elderly and those on low incomes; highlights in this respect the need to promote appropriate partnerships in the management of domain names, including multilingual domain names;

Amendment 57 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 3

3. Notes the deepening digital divide between widely-used and lesser-used languages and sign languages, and draws attention, given the increasing digitalisation of European society, for example in public service provision, to the rights and access issues that this will lead to, particularly for the elderly and those on low incomes, as well as the deaf;

Amendment 58 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 3

Amendment 59 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 3

Amendment 6 #

Motion for a resolution
Citation 15 a (new)

- having regard to the European Parliament's STOA study of March 2017 entitled ‘Language equality in the digital age - Towards a Human Language Project’,

Amendment 60 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 3

3. Notes the deepening digital divide between widely-used and lesser-used languages, and draws attention, given the ever-increasing digitalisation of European society, ~~for example in public service~~in public and private service and content provisions, to the rights and access issues that this will lead to, particularly for the elderly and those on low incomes;

Amendment 61 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 3 a (new)

3a. Stresses that the predominance on the internet of certain languages to the detriment of others also results from a natural phenomenon, as writing content in certain languages spoken by a large number of users worldwide ensures greater visibility on the internet, particularly for commercial purposes;

Amendment 62 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 4

4. Notes that while Europe has a strong scientific base in language engineering and technology, the market is currently dominated by non-European actors, and that this may noteither be suitable nor sufficient for addressing the specific needs of a multilingual Europe; highlights the need to shift this paradigm and reinforce Europe's leadership in language technologies by creating a Human Language Project tailored specifically to Europe’s needs and demands;

Amendment 63 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 4

4. Notes that while Europe has a strong scientific base in language engineering and technology, the market is currently dominated by non-European actors, and that this may not be suitable for addressing the specific needs of a multilingual Europe; notes, furthermore, that progress in language technologies is currently too slow to meet the immediate needs of multilingualism in Europe;

Amendment 64 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 4 a (new)

4a. Points to the need to promote ever greater participation by women in the field of European studies on language technologies as a decisive factor in the development of research and innovation;

Amendment 65 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 5

5. Notes with concern that the Digital Single Market remains fragmented by significant language barriers, thus hindering online commerce, communication via social networks, and the exchange of cultural content, as well as the wider deployment of pan-European public services; believes that in order to ensure the creation of accessible Digital Single Market there is a need to tackle the discrimination of speakers of lesser- spoken European languages when it comes to cross border e-commerce within the EU;

Amendment 66 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 5

5. Notes with concern that the Digital Single Market remains fragmented by significant language barriers, thus hindering online commerce, communication via social networks and other communication channels, and the exchange of cultural content, as well as the wider deployment of pan-European public services;

Amendment 67 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 5

5. Notes with concern that the Digital Single Market remains fragmented by s~~ignificant~~everal barriers, including language ~~barrier~~ones, thus hindering online commerce~~, communication via social networks, and the exchange of cultural content~~ and the exchange of cultural and creative content, especially the audiovisual one, as well as the wider deployment of pan-European public services;

Amendment 68 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 5 a (new)

5 a. Points out that language barriers have an important effect on the construction of the European identity and the future of the European integration process; it is of the opinion that the EU decision-making and various policies should be communicated to EU citizens on their mother tongue online as well as offline;

Amendment 69 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 7

7. Commends the important role of previous EU-funded research networks such FLaReNet, CLARIN, HBP and META-NET (including META-SHARE) for leading the way in the construction of a European language technology platform;

Amendment 7 #

Motion for a resolution
Citation 16 a (new)

- having regard to the European Parliamentary Research Service (EPRS)/Scientific Foresight Unit (STOA) study 'Language equality in the digital age - Towards a Human Language Project' published in March 2017,

Amendment 70 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 7 a (new)

7 a. Calls on the Council to draft a recommendation on the protection and promotion of cultural and linguistic diversity in the Union, also in the sphere of language technologies;

Amendment 71 #

Michaela ŠOJDROVÁ, Santiago FISAS AYXELÀ, Milan ZVER

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8

8. Recommends that in order to raise the profile of language technologies in Europe, the Commission should allocate the area of multilingualism to the portfolio of a Commissioner, given the importance of linguistic diversity for the future of Europe; recalls, however, that the promotion of multilingualism in Europe cannot impinge on the exclusive competence of the Member States in the area of language policy, in particular as regards the legal status and learning of minority and/or regional languages in their public education systems and their use in public services and administrations;

Amendment 72 #

Liadh NÍ RIADA

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8

Amendment 73 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8

8. Recommends that in order to raise the profile of language technologies in Europe, the Commission should allocate the area of 'multilingualism and language technology' to the portfolio of a Commissioner, given the importance of linguistic diversity for the future of Europe;

Amendment 74 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8

8. Recommends that in order to raise the profile of language technologies in Europe, the Commission should ~~allocate the area~~lay greater emphasis ofn multilingualism towithin the portfolio of athe Commissioner responsible for this, and horizontally in the activities of the other directorates-general, given the importance of linguistic diversity for the future of Europe;

Amendment 75 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8

Amendment 76 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8

8. ~~Recommend~~Considers that in order to raise the profile of language technologies in Europe, the Commission shcould allocate the area of multilingualism to the portfolio of a Commissioner, given the importance of linguistic diversity for the future of Europe;

Amendment 77 #

Andrea BOCSKOR

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8 a (new)

8a. Suggests ensuring comprehensive EU-level legal protection for the 60 regional and minority languages, recognition of the collective rights of national and linguistic minorities in the digital world, and mother-tongue teaching for speakers of official and non-official languages of the EU;

Amendment 78 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 9

9. Encourages those Member States that have already developed their own successful policy strategies in the field of language technologies to share their experiences and good practices in order to help other national ~~and~~, regional and local authorities develop their own strategies;

Amendment 79 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 9

9. Encourages those Member States that have already developed their own successful policy strategies in the field of language technologies to share their experiences and good practices in order to help other national ~~and regional~~ authorities develop their own strategies;

Amendment 8 #

Motion for a resolution
Citation 18 a (new)

– having regard to its resolution of 17 May 1988 on sign languages for the deaf5a, _________________ 5a OJ C 184, 18.7.1988, p. 236.

Amendment 80 #

Michaela ŠOJDROVÁ, Santiago FISAS AYXELÀ

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 9 a (new)

9 a. Calls on Member States to develop comprehensive language-related policies and to allocate resources and use appropriate tools in order to promote and facilitate linguistic diversity and multilingualism in the digital sphere;

Amendment 81 #

Andrea BOCSKOR

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 9 a (new)

9a. Takes the view that digital teaching materials must also be developed in minority and regional languages - which is important in terms of non- discrimination - if we want to establish equality of opportunity and treatment;

Amendment 82 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 9 a (new)

9 a. Recalls that national and regional authorities bear the primary responsibility in creating resources for their own languages;

Amendment 83 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 10

10. Calls on the Commission and the Member States to develop strategies and policy actions that will allow multilingualism in the digital market; in this context asks the Commission and the Member States to define the minimum language resources, such as data sets, lexicons, speech records, translation memories, annotated corpora and encyclopaedic contents, that all European languages should possess in order to avoid digital extinction;

Amendment 84 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 10

10. Calls on the Commission and the Member States to define the minimum language resources, such as lexicons, speech records, translation memories, corpora and encyclopaedic contents, including assistive technology for the various sign languages, that all European languages should possess in order to avoid digital extinction;

Amendment 85 #

Michaela ŠOJDROVÁ, Santiago FISAS AYXELÀ, Milan ZVER, Bogdan Brunon WENTA

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 10

10. Calls on the Commission and the Member States to define the minimum language resources, such as lexicons, speech records, translation memories, corpora and encyclopaedic contents, that all official or co-official European languages should possess in order to avoid digital extinction;

Amendment 86 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 10

10. Calls on the Commission and the Member States to define the minimum language resources, such as lexicons, speech records, translation memories, corpora and encyclopaedic contents, that all E~~uropean~~U official languages should possess in order to avoid digital extinction;

Amendment 87 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 10 a (new)

10 a. Recommends the Commission to consider the creation of a centre for linguistic diversity that will strengthen awareness of the importance of lesser- used, regional and minority languages, also in the sphere of language technologies;

Amendment 88 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 10 a (new)

10 a. Asks the Commission to review its “Framework Strategy for Multilingualism” and propose a clear action plan on how to promote linguistic diversity and overcome language barriers in the digital area;

Amendment 89 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 10 a (new)

10 a. Calls on the Commission to give priority in language technology to those Member States which are small in size and have their own language to give importance to their linguistic challenges;

Amendment 9 #

Motion for a resolution
Recital A

A. whereas lthe development of Language tTechnologies covers many research ~~group~~areas and disciplines including ~~natural l~~Computational Linguistics, Artificial Intelligence, Computer Science and Linguistics (with applications such as, among others, Natural Language pProcessing, sText Analytics, Speech tTechnology, ~~information extraction, and machine translation~~Data Mining);

Amendment 90 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 10 a (new)

10 a. Calls upon the Commission to financially support the subtitling, dubbing and translation of video games and software applications into minority and lesser-used languages;

Amendment 91 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 10 b (new)

10 b. Urges Member States to come up with effective ways to solidify their native languages;

Amendment 92 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 10 c (new)

10 c. Stresses that Member States should give the necessary support needed to educational institutions to improve the digitalisation of languages in the EU;

Amendment 93 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 10 d (new)

10 d. Calls on the Commission to promote the use of multiple languages;

Amendment 94 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 11

~~11.~~ Calls on the Commission to ~~11.~~ establish a large-scale, long-term funding programme for research and development and innovation, with a view to developing innovative technologies and services and contributing to the reduction of the technology gap between European languages, whilst giving particular attention to the small member states who have their own native language;

Amendment 95 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 11

11. Calls on the Commission to establish a large-scale, long-term funding programme ("Human Language Project") for research and development and innovation, with a view to developing innovative technologies and services, achieving the next scientific breakthroughs in this area and contributing to the reduction of the technology gap between European languages;

Amendment 96 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 11

11. Calls on the Commission to establish a large-scale, long-term funding programme for research and development and innovation, based on existing European programmes, with a view to developing innovative technologies and services and contributing to the reduction of the technology gap between European languages;

Amendment 97 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 12

12. Believes that specific programmes within current funding schemes such as Horizon 2020, as well as successor funding programmes, should boost long-term basic research as well as knowledge and technology transfer between ~~countries and region~~Member States;

Amendment 98 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 13

13. Recommends the creation of a European language technology platform with representatives from all European languages, that enables the sharing of language technology-related resources, services and open source code packages;

Amendment 99 #