Welsh Language Technology

Cat on a laptop

Want to know more about Welsh language technology? Helo Blod can help.
Whether your business needs a Welsh digital spelling and grammar checker or you’re looking to develop new software, resources and services, our list of Welsh and bilingual resources is the perfect place to start.
It's a live list - help Helo Blod keep it up to date by letting us know about any mistakes or things you think we should add.

Microsoft 365

The popular cloud office suite – but did you know it has a really easy to understand Welsh language interface?

Welsh Language Interface Packs for Microsoft Office and Windows

Welsh language interface for a number of Microsoft programs. The list is also useful for translators who want consistency of labelling and notifications across multiple platforms.

LibreOffice 

Looking for free office suites to be more creative and productive?  Look no further – did we mention they’re available in Welsh too…

Vocab

Not quite got the grasp of a web page in Welsh? VOCAB will have translations of all those unfamiliar words at the tips of your fingers whilst you read the page in Welsh.

Thunderbird   

Add a sprinkling of Cymraeg to your email, news feeds, chat, and calendar with this free Welsh language interface.

'How to' technology videos

Ever thought about changing your Facebook to be yn Gymraeg – how about your computer’s whole interface?  Follow these ‘YouTube’ videos and you can hoffi (like), rhannu (share) and sylw (comment) to your heart’s content.

Cysgliad   

Need help with your Welsh spelling or grammar? Never fear, Cysgliad’s here for individuals, for all schools in Wales, for organisations with ten employees or fewer – for free. What’s in Cysgliad?

  • Cysill – We all make mistakes when writing – no sweat! Cysill will mend your mutations and sort your spelling and grammar in Welsh.
  • Cysgeir – Lost for a Welsh word? Cysill’s little sibling has got you covered. A whole load of dictionaries in one place. Just a click of the llygoden (mouse) and the Welsh word’s there for you

Byd Term Cymru

Resources galore to help you create Welsh language content - terminology database, style guides, and a whole load more.

If you’re looking for a term base to incorporate into your own translation memory Term Cymru terminology download is a great place to start. 

CorCenCC - National Corpus of Contemporary Welsh  

Want to know more about the day to day use of Cymraeg? CorCenCC’s electronic database contains 10 million Welsh words all gathered from real-life communication. Why not try their online teaching and learning toolkit – great for Welsh language learning at all ages and levels.

Curious to find out more about how CorCenCC put this amazing database together – the great news is all their adaptations and documentation is available for free.  Why not put that rule-based semantic tagger to good use? 

And yes, we definitely know what a rule-based semantic tagger does – don’t you ;)

  • The lexicon used to test and build CorCenCC's language tools.
  • Python surface-level natural language processing tools for Welsh. Including segmenter, sentence splitter, tokenizer and parts of speech tagger.
  • Rule-based semantic tagger by Lancaster University.
  • Parts of speech tagger developed from Tensorflow's feed-forward network for embeddings.
  • Python stemmer implementation of Porter's stemming algorithm adapted for Welsh language.
  • CorCenCC’s Welsh text query tools such as colocation, and keyword frequency.

Welsh Natural Language Toolkit (WNLT) 

If textual analysis solutions are your thing, this toolkit was built for you.  Word Segmentation, sentence boundary disambiguation; Parts Of Speech tagger and stemmer – who could say no to an offer like that?  It’s also useful to analyse what’s being said on social media.

Flexi Term Cymraeg: Cardiff University's Welsh term finder

So you know how to run Java script – that’s a gold star from us!  Why not test your skills and try FlexiTerm, it could help you automatically highlight the likeliest term candidates within Welsh texts.

Moses-SMT

Now we’re getting to the good stuff - statistical machine translation software.  Maybe it’s not for everyone, but if translating text Cymraeg is your thing, give it a click.

Bangor University's Welsh-English text aligner 

Another great resource for the translator looking to create translation memories.  Align translated texts into an output of paired sentences.

Linguaskin

Wishing your website was a bit more Cymraeg? Linguaskin could help you add a Welsh interface and functionality to your website.

Or if you’re not quite ready for that step yet, why not pop over to our free translation page, we could help you start small with a few Welsh tweets or posters, and before you know it you’ll have Cymraeg everywhere.

 

Welsh language technology action plan  

Keep up with what’s coming up in the world of digital resources to support the use of Welsh.

Welsh language technology action plan: progress report 2020

Read the action plan and want to know what we’ve achieved so far? Take a look at progress from October 2018 and the end of 2020).

Welsh Wikipedia

Who hasn’t disappeared down the rabbit hole that is Wikipedia from time to time? But have you ever done it in Cymraeg?

Welsh Language Podcast - a Welsh language skill for Alexa

Didn’t know Alexa could help you get your fix of Welsh Podcasts – give it a try and say: "Alexa, open Welsh Language Podcasts".

Y Pod - Welsh language podcast directory  

Or if Alexa isn’t your thing – try Y Pod’s list of all available Welsh language podcasts.

Welsh National Language Technologies Portal 

How about bringing a bit of Cymraeg to your digital project? Between this list and the one you’re currently reading there’s something for every Welsh technology fan.

Hacio'r Iaith

Why not join a community of enthusiasts to discuss and explore updates and developments of Welsh language technology?

Hedyn

Have you ever wondered what apps are available in Welsh? Check out Hedyn’s list of iOS and Android apps.

WordPress  

Ready to get started creating you own website or blog – don’t forget WordPress’s Welsh open source software. You could even add a bit of Cymraeg with Hedyn’s handy list of Welsh plugins and themes: Hedyn's Welsh plugins for WordPress

Scratch

You’re never too young (or old) to try your hand at coding.  Develop simple games and interactive animations – perfect for kids and adults alike.

Codio Cymru

Wishing you could learn and enjoy coding in Welsh? Codio Cymru have all the resources you need.

SwiftKey keyboard

A smart and customizable keyboard that learns your writing style as you type AND works in Welsh too.  Ie plîs / Yes please!

Mapio Cymru 

Hands up if you know the Welsh name for Cardiff?  How about Holyhead and Haverfordwest?  This interactive map of Welsh language place names has all the answers, and you can even insert it onto another website.

Bangor University Corpora

So you want to do a statistical analysis of informal Welsh?  Or is looking at looooong lists of Welsh words more your style?  Either way these corpora (read huge language resources of structures texts), collected by Bangor University could be just the ticket.

Bangor University Lexicons

What do we want?  More lists of Welsh words.  When do we want them?  Oh, they already exist – thanks Bangor University for gathering them all into one place. 

Welsh WordNet

Cardiff University are getting in on the lexical game.  The Welsh words are organised into groups of synonyms ('synsets') linked to each other by a variety of types of lexico-semantic relations.  Now you try saying that 5 times quickly!

Hunspell  

Looking to update a Welsh spellchecker or create a new one of your own?  Use Hunspell’s word list completely free, and as a bonus it’s updated regularly too.

OSCAR corpus

Another corpus (we’re really getting the hang of that word now).  To find the download links search ‘Welsh’ on the page (Ctrl-F).

Microsoft's Welsh-language terms and style guide 

Set the terminology language to ‘Welsh’ and you’re good to go.  These resources can be useful if you’re translating an interface and app labels.

Welsh National Terminology Portal

A great place to search for Welsh words especially relating to specific sectors like education, social care, nature and much more.

CLDR (Common Locale Data Repository)

Building blocks for software – the biggest repository in the world of Locale Data, and of course Welsh is included.

Welsh vector language models

Looking for a language model to train your speech language system?  Here’s one that gives each word a unique a number (or vector) depending on how closely it relates to other words.

Mozilla Common Voice

Looking to train your own speech-enabled applications yn Gymraeg? This is the place to start with many hours of Welsh available to download for free.

And if you want to add your own voice to the mix why not give it a try.

Bangor University's Paldaruo Speech Corpus

Hand up if you thought developing speech technology was easy? *slowly raises hand* Turns out there’s a lot of work involved but this collection of Welsh speech audio recordings could make that journey a whole lot easier.

Macsen - Welsh language voice assistant

If only Alexa had a cool Welsh sibling…  Well, say helo to Macsen, Bangor University's Welsh voice assistant, who’s got a growing set of skills.  They could even be adapted for other smart assistants and you could make a Macsen of your own.

Welsh letter-to-sound rules

Is you Welsh synthetic voice struggling to wrap it’s tongue around some of those Welsh words?  With these rules you’ll have practically perfect pronunciation in no time.

Or download the Welsh language pronunciation lexicon for similar help designed for apps and speech tools.

Bangor University's speech resources   

We all use speech language technologies to communicate with our phones and TVs but how many of us do it yn Gymraeg?  Why not give it a try with these resources from Bangor University.

Bangor University Welsh Transcriber

Download this app, start speaking Cymraeg and it types what you say onto the screen. What could be easier than that!

Gwyneth and Geraint - Ivona's synthetic Welsh voices

Originally the Welsh Government commissioned these Welsh text-to-speech voices from the RNIB Cymru.  The voices enable blind and partially sighted Welsh speakers and learners to read websites, exchange e-mails and read and write documents in Welsh.  The hardest choice is deciding if you’ll listen to Gwyneth or Geraint’s voice today!

Lleisiwr

A pioneering platform that can help if you’re in danger of losing your ability to speak due to sickness or a medical disease.  Use your voice to develop a personal synthetic voice of your own.

MaryTTS - Welsh text-to-speech 

Had a listen to Gwyneth and Geraint and want to create a synthetic voice of your own – this is the program for you.  Don’t forget to give your voice a catchy name when you’re done.

Festival text-to-speech

A text to speech program – does exactly what it says on the tin.

Screen reader suitable for Welsh speakers 

A free, high quality screen reader that’s accessible to all.  Just add your own Welsh-speaking voice and you’re all set.

A guide on bilingual software for developers

Are you or your organisation developing bilingual software?  This is the perfect guide to help to ensure the project offers great user experience in Welsh and English.

 

Did you know that we’re developing a whole load of Language Technology at the Welsh Government which you can all use and reuse to your heart’s content – for free! Here’s what we're up to and here’s what we’ve done so far.