Bangor University switches to Welsh domain in a drive to promote minority EU languages

Bangor University has adopted .cymru for its online portals to publicise the new Welsh domain brand and give a platform to Welsh, a minority language in the EU.

The .cymru and .wales domain names were launched earlier this year by Welsh businesses, wishing to promote their Welsh identity and gain a unique selling point in domestic, European and wider international markets.

Delyth Prys, head of the Language Technologies Unit, said: "As the web and digital media become an increasingly important part of our society, this offers a business opportunity to SMEs to produce multilingual products, processes and services in a host of different environments.

"For example, a web designer might be asked to produce a multilingual website, or an app developer might wish to produce an app for many different language markets. Very often, these SMEs are not experts in language technology themselves, with the language elements being embedded as part of a wider product or service.

"This is where universities can help, and exchanging knowledge with SMEs in these sectors and in these regions can really set the ball rolling to boost our local economies and improve cross-border research and innovation. 

Recent years have seen a growth in SMEs, especially microbusinesses, in north and west Wales, in the ICT and Creative Industries sectors, who have a need for these language components in their own software and apps.

Ms Prys said: “Improved communications infrastructure, especially access to fast broadband, has made setting up such businesses in some of these rural and semi-rural areas a much more realistic possibility.

"They offer highly skilled jobs and are a valuable part of the supply chain for media and high tech companies. Because they’re based in bilingual communities themselves they have a better insight into the opportunities multilingual communications can offer in a global environment. 

Ms Prys, on behalf of Bangor University, will try and secure EU funding to drive innovation and promote the use of language technologies in industry and business in cooperation with other EU regions with minority languages, including Cornwall, Scotland, Ireland, Galicia, the Basque Region, and Brittany.

Ms Prys added: “Minority languages are too often thought of as a ‘problem’ in the European context, but this is far from the truth. Speakers of minority languages belong to truly bilingual societies, and are used to switching between two, if not more languages in the course of their daily lives." ​

Bangor University currently hosts three portals: the Welsh National Terminology Portal (termau.cymru), giving access to nearly twenty specialist on-line bilingual technical dictionaries; the Welsh National Corpora Portal, with a collection of on-line searchable monolingual and bilingual corpora (corpws.cymru); and the Welsh National Language Technologies Portal (techiaith.cymru), which houses a toolkit of free resources and APIs for Welsh speech and text processing.

Further information

Anyone who would like further information, or who is interested in joining a partnership to develop suitable initiatives is welcome to contact:

Delyth Prys at +44 (0)1248 382800 or d.prys@bangor.ac.uk