Call for Papers: The 1st Workshop on NLP for Languages Using Arabic Script (AbjadNLP 2025)

https://wp.lancs.ac.uk/abjad/cfp/

Co-located with COLING 2025 Conference, Abu Dhabi, UAE (19-20 January 2025)

AbjadNLP is dedicated to advancing innovation and gaining deeper insights into Natural Language Processing (NLP) for languages that use the Arabic script. Our primary focus is on Abjad and Ajami languages that utilise the Arabic script or its variations. Traditionally associated with Semitic languages, Abjad scripts represent consonants in every syllable. In contrast, Ajami scripts denote the alphabetic use of the Arabic script in various African contexts, representing non-Arabic languages. We are interested in research on languages that fall under the Abjad or Ajami categories that use the Arabic script or any variations of it.

We invite contributions, discussions, and explorations that delve deep into the unique linguistic structures, resources, challenges, and untapped potential presented by Abjad and Ajami languages within the realm of NLP and language resources. Our goal is to create synergies among researchers by addressing the diverse phenomena and challenges inherent in these rich linguistic traditions.

The workshop is proud to highlight our connections with the Masakhane NLP community and collaborations with institutions worldwide, such as COMSATS on Urdu, and the long-standing UCREL NLP Group at Lancaster University, whose work encompasses over 20 languages worldwide, including Abjad and Ajami languages.

Note: We chose the name Abjad for simplicity, but our focus includes Abjad and other languages that have adopted the Arabic and Perso-Arabic scripts, as well as Ajami languages. We acknowledge that Sorani Kurdish, when written in Arabic script, follows an alphabet style rather than an Abjad style.

Topics of Interest:

Core Technologies: morphological analysis, disambiguation, tokenisation, POS tagging, named entity detection, chunking, parsing, semantic role labelling, sentiment analysis, language modelling, etc.
Applications: machine translation, speech recognition, speech synthesis, optical character recognition, assistive technologies, social media, etc.
Resources and Tools: dictionaries, annotated data, corpora, orthography descriptions, font technology, glyph rendering, text input methodologies, spell-checking, speech-to-text solutions, BLARK descriptions, open access corpora.
Cultural and Sociolinguistic Considerations: text processing, transliteration challenges, and solutions, cultural contexts in NLP applications.

Submission Guidelines:

We follow the COLING 2025 standards for submission format and guidelines. Submissions should conform to the following types:

Long papers: Up to eight (8) pages, presenting substantial, original, completed, and unpublished work.
Short papers: Up to four (4) pages, describing a small focused contribution, negative results, system demonstrations, etc.

Key Dates:

1st Call for Papers Announcement: 16 July 2024
2nd Call for Papers Announcement: 16 August 2024
Paper Submission Deadline: 15 November 2024
Notification of Paper Acceptance: 6 December 2024
Camera-ready Paper Deadline: 13 December 2024
Workshop Date: 19 or 20 January 2025

Organising Committee:

General Chair: Mo El-Haj, Lancaster University

Programme Chairs:

Hugh Paterson III, Collaborative Scholar
Saad Ezzini, Lancaster University
Ignatius Ezeani, Lancaster University

Review Committee:

Mahum Hayat Khan, University of La Rioja
Muhammad Sharjeel, COMSATS University Islamabad

Publication Chair: Sina Ahmadi, University of Zurich

Publicity Chairs:

Cynthia Amol, Maseno University
Amal Haddad Haddad, University of Granada
Jaleh Delfani, University of Surrey

Advisory Committee:

Ruslan Mitkov, Lancaster University
Paul Rayson, Lancaster University