Mark Drakeford, Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language
In February last year, the Minister for Education and Welsh Language, updated you on our past Welsh language technology work. Today, I’m publishing this statement about our next steps.
We’ve spent the last few years creating lots of things which will make using technology in Welsh easier. Language is a people thing, and people use technology every day of course. And our work on technology and the Welsh language is guided by the wider principles the Welsh Government has adopted in the field. For example, to support our Digital strategy for Wales, we’ll work with people to make sure they have the access, skills and confidence to use services in Cymraeg, through technology. You will also have received, just before Christmas, a written statement from the Minister for Culture, Skills and Social Partnership, on behalf of the Workforce Partnership Council, which discusses Artificial Intelligence and the workplace.
Last year, we asked people to tell us what they thought was needed in the future for Welsh language technology. And based on what they told us, we have three new priorities. Our overarching message is that we’ll do everything we can to make it easier to use Cymraeg in technology, and we’ll use all the possibilities that technology offers to help us use Cymraeg.
Our first priority is developing technology as a way to help increase the daily use of our language, especially in workplaces. Technology can make it easier to use Welsh in all aspects of life, from education and work to social interactions. So, we’ll work with universities, procurement and tendering systems and companies big and small. We’ll also work to ensure that Welsh-speaking children, young people, and adults and learners feel safe and protected from harmful content when they use technology in Welsh. We’ll work with the Welsh language Commissioner too by making the Working Welsh/Iaith Gwaith logo more visible online, developing Welsh language technology in workplaces, services and beyond. We’ll make sure that tools like Welsh language spelling and grammar checkers are up to date, and we’ll make them available on more platforms.
Our second priority is making sure Welsh language technology reaches developers and end users. We’ll make it easier for parents and teachers to support children’s Welsh language education. We’ll share news and updates about Welsh language content and technology via Hwb so parents—wherever they are on their language journey—can help their children use more of their Cymraeg.
We’ll support the community of developers in Wales too. As part of this work, we’ll develop our Helo Blod tools and resources page so that developers, and any users of Welsh language tech know what’s available and how to use it. We’ll continue to promote the “trio writing” methodology to make content and services as accessible as possible through Cymraeg.
And our open approach that we’ve had since the beginning of our work on technology continues. Cymraeg belongs to us all and we believe that using Welsh should cost nothing to the end user. So, we’ll make sure that we release the Welsh language technology we fund for free. We’ll work with the National Centre for Learning Welsh to develop the technology behind their tools for Welsh learners. And we’ll supply data and resources to all, to ensure Welsh is supported as much as it can be. That could include technology to help people with specific needs, such as disabled people, and those with additional learning needs. Already, our partnership with Tobii Dynavox—an assistive technology company—has led to Welsh language software to support children and adults with speaking difficulties. And we’ll work more in this field, for example to help Welsh speakers with Motor Neurone Disease to communicate in Cymraeg after they lose their ability to speak.
Our third priority is to improve Welsh language artificial intelligence—that’s to say, AI—and Welsh language speech technologies. For many years now, before AI was everywhere we’ve supported the development of AI, automatic speech recognition, text to speech and other language technologies in Welsh. Large Language Models—or LLMs—used by AI, rely on large amounts of training data. We’ve already taken steps to share data with AI projects like AINA, led by the Government of Catalonia, and under our partnership with OpenAI. We’ll keep sharing and we’ll encourage others to share their content to improve AI and all other technologies in Welsh. Working together with Microsoft, we’ve already developed simultaneous human interpretation on Teams, and we’ve worked to improve how Copilot—Microsoft’s latest AI tool—processes the Welsh language. And we’ll carry on working with big tech companies, and small tech too. We want to encourage a home-grown community of tech developers and tech companies too of course.
We want to make sure technology can understand Welsh in the way that Welsh speakers use it every day—like when we use a bit of Saesneg in our Cymraeg and vice versa. And we’ll work with our international partners so our work can help multilingual communities around the world.
So, these are our priorities for technology and Cymraeg. We want you to know exactly what we’re delivering and we’ll publish regular updates on a dedicated page on our website which we’re launching today. As I’ve already said, Cymraeg belongs to us all and I want us all to use whatever Welsh we have, and we’ll create the technology to help make that happen.
Relevant Links
- Technology and the Welsh language: call for information
- Call for information on Welsh language technology: Summary of responses
- Technology to help people use more Cymraeg
- Helo Blod: Welsh Language Technology tools and resources
- Bilingual technology toolkit for good user experience
- Welsh language technology action plan: final report 2018 to 2014