Latvia can become leading developer of multilingual technologies in Europe - Tilde head

RIGA - Latvia has an opportunity to take the leading role in developing multilingual technologies in Europe, Andrejs Vasijevs, board chairman of Latvia's Tilde language technology company, said Friday in a discussion on Europe's future hosted by the Saeima European Affairs Committee.   

Vasiljevs indicated that Latvia is well positioned to take the leadership role in this area both politically and technologically. A multilingual digital infrastructure would remove language barriers, allowing everyone to use automated translation, voice features and text analysis in document processing, Vasiljevs said, adding that the European Union (EU) lacks a consistent approach to this matter. 

The head of the language technology company noted that when it comes to developing language technologies, Europe must not become reliant on solutions developed in other regions because it would create serious risks to Europe's sovereignty. According to Vasiljevs, English cannot become the main language of communication at the moment given that 60 percent of Europeans are unable to use English even on the conversational level and as many people only use their native language in online communication.