Office of Citizenship and Migration Affairs, in cooperation with Tilde, is implementing the project “Speak the Anthem”. Within the framework of the project, artificial intelligence is taught to understand the peculiarities of Latvian pronunciation, nuances and differences in language fluency. The aim of the project is to support applicants for Latvian citizenship who are preparing for the naturalization exam, allowing them to assess their knowledge of the Latvian national anthem with the help of an artificial intelligence program.
Anyone whose mother tongue is not Latvian is invited to participate in the training of artificial intelligence by speaking the Latvian national anthem on the website www.ierunahimnu.lv.
Currently, Tilde's speech technologies are able to fully recognize the "pure" Latvian language. The next ambitious step is to help the artificial intelligence to recognize various peculiarities of pronunciation, making this technology more useful to the general public.
It has been long since Latvian language was only spoken by Latvians - it is learned by young people in minority schools, exchange students and people from other countries who have chosen to live in Latvia, as well as families who want to return to Latvia after long stay abroad.
The audio recordings sent in by the participants to the project will be used to create an inclusive artificial intelligence solution for the recognition of Latvian speech. In future, this solution could also become a great helper for non-Latvians in learning the Latvian language.
“Speak the Anthem” project is part of the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund 2014-2020 program implemented by the Office of Citizenship and Migration Affairs project no. OCMA / PMIF / 2018/3 “Improvement and development of information systems and related processes supporting naturalization” within the framework of which an electronic tool for self-testing of Latvian language skills will be developed. This will allow applicants for citizenship to test their Latvian language skills, the basic provisions of the Constitution of the Republic of Latvia, the text of the national anthem, as well as the basics of Latvian history and culture.
Prepared by:
Madara Puķe
OCMA Public Relations Manager
67219185, 26344600