Gaelic to join the digital revolution

VOICE-ACTIVATED digital assistants – similar to Alexa – that speak Scottish Gaelic could be one step closer to development, it has emerged.

A team of linguists and artificial intelligence specialists has developed software that can listen to spoken Gaelic and print it out as written text.

Researchers at the University of Edinburgh now hope to upgrade the technology so it not only prints what it hears, but responds verbally too – just like voice assistants Siri, Alexa and Google.

The speech recognition system can already provide subtitles for online video content. It can also help those who are learning the language and support Gaelicmedium schoolchildren with dyslexia.

Project leader Dr William Lamb, of the university’s School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures, said the measures taken offer hope for the survival of the language.

He said: “By enlisting the support and expertise of the Gaelic community, and giving back to them in this way, we hope to demonstrate any minority language can thrive in the digital age.”