Digital Technologies in the Service of Native Languages

KBSU hosted an online webinar on computational linguistics with the participation of the Commission for the Study of National Languages. The event aimed to consolidate efforts to preserve and develop the native languages ​​of Kabardino-Balkaria, as well as to improve linguistic literacy and support interdisciplinary research.

Leading specialists from the KBSU Institute of Social Sciences and Humanities and the Institute of Applied Semiotics of the Tatarstan Academy of Sciences joined the dialogue. The university was represented by Muslim Tamazov, Director of the Institute of Applied Semiotics, Khakim Gergayev, Deputy Director for Research, and department heads. From the Kazan side, the webinar was attended by Rinat Gilmullin, Director of the Institute of Applied Semiotics; Dzhavdet Suleimanov, Academician of the Tatarstan Academy of Sciences; and Airat Gatiatullin, Leading Researcher at the Institute.

The meeting focused on areas of potential collaboration in applied semiotics, computational linguistics, and cognitive linguistics. Rinat Gilmullin presented the history and key achievements of the Institute of Applied Semiotics, founded in 2009. It comprises two research departments: Intelligent Information Systems and Cognitive Research. Researchers are working on «Semiotic Modeling in the Humanities,» creating software tools, applied systems, and linguistic resources for the Tatar language, which are used in science, education, office work, publishing, and the media.

Among the Kazan specialists’ completed projects are a two-level morphological analyzer, the «Tatar Morphme» software and information system, a diphone-based speech synthesizer, the TATCORR spell checker, and a number of mobile applications. The institute is currently developing a Russian-Tatar machine translation system based on neural networks, creating the «Tugan Tel» National Corpus of the Tatar Language, an electronic version of the Atlas of Tatar Dialects, and a Russian-Tatar socio-political ontological thesaurus.

«It is important for us to expand our research into Turkic languages. I am confident that our collaboration with KBSU scholars will yield positive results. Such collaboration is highly welcome,» noted Rinat Gilmullin, emphasizing that the experience of digitalizing the Tatar language can be successfully adapted to create similar resources for the Kabardian and Balkar languages. A key part of the webinar was a presentation by leading researcher Airat Gatiatullin on the TurkLang international conference on computer processing of Turkic languages. The conference, held regularly since 2013, creates a scientific and organizational space and a technological base for exchanging experience in the field of digital research on Turkic languages.

«Simply put, how can IT developers help a language either develop or survive? Modern digital translators rely on artificial intelligence, which, in turn, requires constant updating with high-quality content. This means that IT specialists and linguists can effectively support each other,» the speaker explained. He also announced plans to expand the conference’s geographic scope to include representatives from Kabardino-Balkaria.
KBSU staff expressed strong interest in partnering with their Kazan colleagues. In particular, Svetlana Bashiev, Head of the Department of Russian Language and General Linguistics, proposed combining efforts to create cultural dictionaries of the Turkic peoples. Other promising areas for joint work were also identified: formal models and software services for national languages, the development of electronic corpora, morphological and syntactic analysis systems, speech technologies, machine translation, as well as linguistic ontologies and knowledge graphs.

Summarizing the meeting, Muslim Tamazov, Director of the KBSU Institute of Social Sciences and Humanities, proposed developing a detailed roadmap for joint projects and continuing the dialogue in person. For their part, Kazan scholars invited KBSU representatives to participate in the TurkLang 2026 conference, which will be held May 13–15 at the L.N. Gumilyov Eurasian National University (Kazakhstan).

The webinar marked an important step toward inter-university collaboration and the implementation of modern digital technologies in working with the linguistic heritage of the North Caucasus regions.