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ALPS 2027 Winter School: 1st Call for Participation
by Laurent Besacier 10 Jul '26

10 Jul '26

ALPS 2027: The seventh Advanced Language Processing School Dates: Sunday 28th March to Friday 2d April, 2027 Location: Aussois, French Alps Website: https://lig-alps.imag.fr/ <https://lig-alps.imag.fr/> About ALPS ALPS is co-organized by LIG (Univ. Grenoble Alpes), Naver Labs Europe, and Poolside.ai, and consists in a week-long series of lectures by world-class NLP researchers, sessions where participants present their work, social sessions, lab sessions, and outdoor activities in the mountains. The school will take place in the Alps (the Vanoise massif) at Aussois (1500m) and close to France’s first national park. What ALPS represents: Advanced lectures by first class researchers. An atmosphere that fosters connections and interactions. A poster session for attendees to present their work, gather feedback and brainstorm future work ideas. Target audience The intended audience of ALPS 2027 are graduate students (PhD students or advanced master students) in natural language processing or related fields. We also welcome other NLP practitioners working in industry or academia. Application: will open soon but instructions are here https://lig-alps.imag.fr/index.php/application/ <https://lig-alps.imag.fr/index.php/application/> You will need a resumé (maximum length: 2 pages) and a cover letter. For the cover letter, it should be in English and explain your motivation in attending this advanced research school. We are unfortunately not capable of accepting all candidates, and this letter is a key component that helps us to ensure that the participant’s profiles are balanced and diverse.

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sharing information about BabyHuBERT
by Alex CRISTIA 06 Jul '26

06 Jul '26

Dear all, Over the past four years, researchers worldwide have entrusted the ExELang team <http://exelang.fr/> led by Alex Cristia with their raw audio recordings (either through bilateral Data Transfer Agreements/Memoranda of Understanding, or through scientific archives), which allowed the development of several computational models. Today, we are writing to you about one called BabyHuBERT. BabyHuBERT is a speech representation model, a sort of “jack of all trades” that can then be specialized to solve a specific task, such as voice type classification. The release of this model raised some important ethical questions. To get a non-technical introduction to BabyHuBERT and learn about our approach to its ethics, check out the slides <https://osf.io/n75rs/files/3hqzv> and video recording <https://osf.io/n75rs/files/jaume> (also available on YouTube <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inWK5YVET9Q&t=2s>) of a talk Alex gave recently for some researchers who had shared their data with us. The technical description of the model has been reported on "BabyHuBERT: Multilingual Self-Supervised Learning for Segmenting Speakers in Child-Centered Long-Form Recordings" (https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.15001), recently accepted at Interspeech. For those interested in potentially using the model, we invite you to visit this OSF Link <https://osf.io/n75rs/overview>, which includes: - A PDF with the documents surrounding the decisions taken regarding the release <https://osf.io/n75rs/files/964df> - The BabyHuBERT License v1.0 <https://osf.io/b79v4>- An introduction to BabyHuBERT <https://osf.io/n75rs/files/anx9v>, a FAQ <https://osf.io/n75rs/files/u2nrf>, and a process flow document <https://osf.io/n75rs/files/a7t2y> Please feel free to reach out to Marvin Lavechin <marvinlavechin(a)gmail.com> if you have any questions! Best, The ExELang team --------------------------------------------------------------- Alex (Alejandrina) Cristia --------------------------------------------------------------- If you donate, ask me about effective charities <https://effectivealtruism.us8.list-manage.com/track/click?u=52b028e7f799cca…>. / Si vous faites des dons, nous pouvons échanger sur le don efficace <https://mieuxdonner.fr/>.

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First Call for Papers — DHASA Conference 2026
by Menno Van Zaanen 25 Jun '26

25 Jun '26

First Call for Papers — DHASA Conference 2026 https://dh2026.digitalhumanities.org.za Theme: Building the Methodological Commons: Plural Digital Humanities, AI, and Socio-Technical Futures in Southern Africa Conference: 17–20 November 2026 · University of Eswatini, Kwaluseni, Kingdom of Eswatini Important dates Submission deadline: 20 August 2026 Date of notification: 21 September 2026 Camera-ready copy deadline: 19 October 2026 Conference: 17 November 2026 – 20 November 2026 Conference venue: University of Eswatini, Kwaluseni, Kingdom of Eswatini Co-located events Several co-located events are currently being prepared, including workshops and tutorials. These will be updated on the conference website. Submission types Long papers — max 8 content pages (9 in final version), presented in 30-minute slots (incl. 10 min questions) Short papers — max 5 content pages (6 in final version), presented in 15-minute slots (incl. 5 min questions) Executive summaries — max 1 page, presented as posters References and appendices are unlimited for long and short papers. All submissions must be in PDF and follow the ACL style guide (https://acl-org.github.io/ACLPUB/formatting.html). Submissions that do not adhere to the style guide will be rejected. Submit via the platform: https://dh2026.digitalhumanities.org.za/submission/ Accepted long and short papers will be published in the JDHASA journal; executive summaries will appear in a book of summaries before the conference. We particularly encourage submissions where the first author is a student. Authors are encouraged to upload datasets to the SADiLaR repository (https://repo.sadilar.org/); for difficulties, contact Benito Trollip (benito.trollip(a)nwu.ac.za). About the conference This conference foregrounds DH as method-making and infrastructure- building — not only tool use. It invites scholarship that advances shared practices (methods, standards, datasets, workflows, pedagogies) while staying attentive to the politics of computation, language, heritage, and knowledge-making in Southern Africa. It also explicitly welcomes critical engagements with AI as an epistemic and cultural force shaping humanities inquiry. Contributions are welcome from across the humanities and allied fields, as well as from computer scientists, data scientists, designers, librarians, archivists, journalists, educators, and community practitioners. Subthemes (non-exclusive; interdisciplinary contributions encouraged) - AI in the humanities, responsibly - Southern African language technologies and linguistic justice - Decolonial, Indigenous, and community-engaged DH - Digital heritage, archives, history, and memory work - Critical platform studies, media, and computational publics - Pedagogy, curriculum, and capacity-building - Infrastructure, sustainability, and open scholarly ecosystems The full call for papers, including detailed subtheme descriptions and co-located events, is available at https://dh2026.digitalhumanities.org.za -- Prof Menno van Zaanen menno.vanzaanen(a)nwu.ac.za Professor in Digital Humanities South African Centre for Digital Language Resources https://www.sadilar.org ________________________________ NWU PRIVACY STATEMENT: http://www.nwu.ac.za/it/gov-man/disclaimer.html DISCLAIMER: This e-mail message and attachments thereto are intended solely for the recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorised review, use, disclosure, or distribution is prohibited. If you have received the e-mail by mistake, please contact the sender or reply e-mail and delete the e-mail and its attachments (where appropriate) from your system. ________________________________

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Language Technology and Under-Resourced Languages: Community Survey
by Sakriani Sakti 24 Jun '26

24 Jun '26

Dear Colleagues, We invite you to participate in a survey on language technology for Indigenous, minority, and under-resourced languages. The purpose of this survey is to better understand the current state of language technology, community perspectives, existing skills, and training interests related to Indigenous, minority, and under-resourced languages. We welcome responses from language community members, educators, linguists, researchers, developers, language activists, and others who work with or support these languages. The survey takes approximately 10–15 minutes to complete. The results will help us better understand current needs, priorities, and experiences related to these languages and may inform future community activities and initiatives. Survey link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdXwfTA8pZrefZ1oU_KvrEUPqMYTMt0hmB… We would greatly appreciate your participation and would be grateful if you could share this survey with other language communities, colleagues, or organizations that may be interested. Thank you very much for your time and support. Kind regards, Sakriani Sakti ELRA/ISCA SIGUL Board ISCA Board Geographical Outreach

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SIGUL Board Transition and Proposed Officer Appointments
by Sakriani Sakti 24 Jun '26

24 Jun '26

Dear SIGUL Members, In October 2025, we issued a call for nominations for the positions of SIGUL Chair and Secretary. Unfortunately, despite extending the nomination period, we did not receive enough nominations to proceed with an election. One nomination was received through the open call, and a second candidate agreed to serve after being approached by the Board. Although we are grateful for their willingness to contribute, the number of candidates remained insufficient to support an election process. At the same time, our current Chairs and Secretary have taken on additional professional and personal commitments, making it difficult for them to continue carrying the full responsibilities of their roles. To ensure the continued operation of SIGUL and to provide a sustainable distribution of responsibilities, the Board proposes the following arrangement: * The two new candidates, *Atul K. Ojha*and *Alice Millour*, will assume the roles of Co-Chairs. * The current Secretary, *Maite Melero*, will continue in the role of Secretary. * The current Chairs, *Sakriani Sakti*and *Claudia Soria*, will remain on the Board to provide continuity, advice, and support during the transition period. If there are no objections from the membership, these changes will take effect on *30 June 2026*, and the proposed officers will formally assume their responsibilities from that date. Should you have any concerns or objections regarding this proposal, please let us know before 30 June 2026. Thank you for your continued support of SIGUL and for helping us ensure the continued success of our community. Kind regards, Sakriani Sakti, Claudia Soria, and Maite Melero On behalf of the current SIGUL Board

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CALL FOR PARTICIPATION - NLPAICS 2026
by Ranasinghe, Tharindu 27 May '26

27 May '26

Second International Conference on Natural Language Processing and Artificial Intelligence for Cyber Security (NLPAICS 2026) The Second International Conference on Natural Language Processing and Artificial Intelligence for Cyber Security (NLPAICS 2026) invites researchers, practitioners, industry experts, and students to participate in this international forum dedicated to the latest advances in NLP, Artificial Intelligence, and Cyber Security. The will take place in Alicante, Spain, on 11–12 June 2026. The list of accepted papers is published at: https://nlpaics2026.gplsi.es/ . Further details about keynote speakers, and submissions are also available on the official conference website. The conference programme will be announced shortly. Researchers and attendees interested in participating are encouraged to register as soon as possible to secure the reduced rates and join the NLPAICS 2026 community. Early registration must be completed before Monday, 25 May 2026 in order to benefit from the discounted registration fees. Special fee rates are also available for participants attending NLPAICS + Summer School: “The Paradigm Shift: From Rules to Models in Natural Language Processing” (https://summer-school.gplsi.es/) that will be held from 15-17 June 2026 in Alicante. For updates and additional information, please visit the official conference website. Best Regards Organising committee, NLPAICS

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CfP: Pivotal Players: Academic reflections special issue
by Menno Van Zaanen 26 May '26

26 May '26

Dear Colleague, We are writing to invite you to contribute to a curated collection of articles titled Pivotal Players: Academic reflections on major works that have shaped research across the Arts, Humanities, and Social Science. ABOUT THE COLLECTION The collection is premised on a deceptively simple observation: while researchers regularly build on prior scholarship, we rarely pause to reflect explicitly on which works have shaped us, and how. This collection creates a dedicated space for exactly that reflection. Contributors are invited to select a publication from before 2000 that has inspired them in their own research; this may include, but is not limited to, a seminal book, article, or comparable scholarly work, and write a reflective piece examining its impact: on the field broadly, on your own intellectual and methodological development, or both. Contributions need not be uncritical. The collection welcomes honest assessments of a work's limitations, contested legacies, or the ways a field has moved beyond, or failed to move beyond, its foundational assumptions. The collection is anchored in Digital Humanities but is explicitly transdisciplinary. Given that Digital Humanities is a relatively young field, contributors are encouraged to draw on influential works from cognate disciplines, including the social sciences, humanities, media studies, information science, musicology, education, and beyond, and to articulate how those works connect to current digital scholarship. At a moment when knowledge production is accelerating, and the boundaries of the digital humanities are being actively renegotiated, this kind of reflexive scholarship helps the field understand its own genealogy, surface underrepresented intellectual lineages, and think more carefully about the assumptions embedded in foundational texts. Routledge Open Research uses a transparent, post-publication peer- review model that enables rapid publication and ongoing scholarly dialogue. The format itself, reflective, personal, and rigorous, also offers academics the rare opportunity to be truly transparent about the works that have genuinely formed their thinking. For more information about this new publication format, please contact Kristen Brida <Kristen.Brida(a)taylorandfrancis.com>. SUBMISSION DETAILS Final submission deadline (with rolling submission): 31 March 2027 Collection page and submission portal: https://routledgeopenresearch.org/collections/academic-reflections-major-wo… We would warmly welcome your contribution. If you are interested or would like to discuss a potential piece before committing, please do not hesitate to contact us directly. Janelize Morelli <Janelize.Morelli(a)nwu.ac.za> Menno Van Zaanen <Menno.VanZaanen(a)nwu.ac.za> -- Prof Menno van Zaanen menno.vanzaanen(a)nwu.ac.za Professor in Digital Humanities South African Centre for Digital Language Resources https://www.sadilar.org ________________________________ NWU PRIVACY STATEMENT: http://www.nwu.ac.za/it/gov-man/disclaimer.html DISCLAIMER: This e-mail message and attachments thereto are intended solely for the recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorised review, use, disclosure, or distribution is prohibited. If you have received the e-mail by mistake, please contact the sender or reply e-mail and delete the e-mail and its attachments (where appropriate) from your system. ________________________________

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CfP Journal of the Digital Humanities Association of Southern Africa (JDHASA)
by Menno Van Zaanen 20 May '26

20 May '26

Call for Submissions The Journal of the Digital Humanities Association of Southern Africa (JDHASA), ISSN 3006-6492, invites innovative and exploratory contributions that push the boundaries of digital humanities research and practice, especially those engaging with emerging technologies, critical data studies, and culturally situated methodologies. We particularly encourage submissions that foreground underrepresented voices, languages, and epistemologies, or that critically examine the social, political, and ethical dimensions of digital scholarship in the Global South and beyond. Submissions that demonstrate interdisciplinary collaboration or address teaching and pedagogy in digital humanities are especially welcome. JDHASA remains committed to fostering inclusive scholarly exchange and building a vibrant community of practice. Potential topics include, but are not limited to * Digital humanities in the Global South * Artificial intelligence in humanities research * Decolonial and postcolonial approaches to digital scholarship * Infrastructure, access, and digital divides * Computational linguistics and low-resource languages * Human language technologies for African languages * Digital literary studies and text analysis * Digital storytelling and multimedia narratives * Digital arts and creative practice * Media studies in the digital age * Critical data studies and data ethics * Social media analysis and public discourse * Digital archives and preservation * Library and information science in digital contexts * Cultural heritage digitisation * Interdisciplinary methods in digital humanities * Digital pedagogy and teaching practices * DH curriculum development and programme design * Digital mapping and spatial humanities * Community-based and participatory digital projects Contributions may include research articles, case studies, methodological interventions, project reports, book reviews (max. 2 pages), and reflective essays. Research articles may be submitted as short papers, e.g. for work in progress (max. 8 pages), or long papers (max. 20 pages). Articles should follow the ACL style guidelines (https://2023.aclweb.org/calls/style_and_formatting/). Prospective authors should ensure that submissions align with the journal’s open-access ethos and undergo rigorous peer review. Please consult the journal guidelines for formatting and submission details (https://upjournals.up.ac.za/index.php/dhasa/about/submissions#authorGuideli… ), and watch for announcements of upcoming special issues that highlight timely and emerging themes. JDHASA aims to release at least two issues annually. Submission deadline for the first issue of 2026 is the 30th of June, 2026, but rolling submissions are accepted throughout the year. The cut-off date for the second issue is the 31st of December 2026. Link to the journal website and submission system: http://upjournals.up.ac.za/index.php/dhasa/ Contact: journal(a)digitalhumanities.org.za About JDHASA The Journal of the Digital Humanities Association of Southern Africa (JDHASA), ISSN 3006-6492, is a peer-reviewed open-access journal that publishes research from DHASA members and the wider scholarly community, with a focus on Digital Humanities in the Global South. Its scope spans areas such as computational linguistics and literary studies, digital arts, media, technology criticism, and information and archive studies, among others. Established alongside DHASA in 2016, the journal supports an interdisciplinary network of scholars and aims to foster a “methodological commons” while encouraging dialogue and critical reflection on teaching and research in the field. -- Prof Menno van Zaanen menno.vanzaanen(a)nwu.ac.za Professor in Digital Humanities South African Centre for Digital Language Resources https://www.sadilar.org ________________________________ NWU PRIVACY STATEMENT: http://www.nwu.ac.za/it/gov-man/disclaimer.html DISCLAIMER: This e-mail message and attachments thereto are intended solely for the recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorised review, use, disclosure, or distribution is prohibited. If you have received the e-mail by mistake, please contact the sender or reply e-mail and delete the e-mail and its attachments (where appropriate) from your system. ________________________________

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3rd Workshop on Language Models for Underserved Communities (LM4UC)
by Fred PHILIPPY 27 Apr '26

27 Apr '26

We are excited to announce the 3rd Language Models for Underserved Communities (LM4UC) workshop, co-located with IJCAI 2026. The workshop will take place in person and virtually between August 15-17, 2026, in Bremen. LM4UC invites researchers, practitioners, and policymakers to address challenges and propose innovative solutions for building and deploying language models (LMs) for underserved languages and communities. Underserved communities often lack adequate access to advanced NLP technologies due to limited linguistic data, insufficient computational resources, or inadequate AI governance frameworks. This gap hinders equitable access to NLP advancements, exacerbating the digital divide. Our workshop aims to address this by fostering a multidisciplinary dialogue around the development of LMs that prioritize cultural sensitivity, resource efficiency, and sustainable AI practices. Topics of Interest We invite submissions of full papers, ongoing work, position papers, and survey papers on topics including, but not limited to: 1. Evaluation Design: Evaluations are no longer passive datasets. They are mechanisms that shape model development. We invite research that focuses on principled, technically grounded benchmark design. 2. Cultural Alignment & Safety: Most alignment research assumes Western norms. We invite papers that focus on technically grounded alignment methods that generalize across cultures and languages. 3. Agentic Systems in Global Environments: As LLMs become agents, we need formal evaluation and control in multilingual, multi-cultural environments. Submission Guidelines We welcome long papers (8 pages) and short papers (4 pages), excluding references. Submissions must follow the IJCAI 2026 style guidelines. Important Dates * Submission deadline: May 24, 2026 * Notification of acceptance: June 7, 2026 * Camera-ready paper due: August 1, 2026 * Workshop dates: August 15/16/17, 2026 Submit your paper via OpenReview: https://openreview.net/group?id=ijcai.org/IJCAI/2026/Workshop/LM4UC Contact Us: For inquiries, please contact the workshop organizer: lm4uc.organizers(a)gmail.com<mailto:lm4uc.organizers@gmail.com>

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Call for Participation for the 7th RAIL WORKSHOP
by Menno Van Zaanen 14 Apr '26

14 Apr '26

Call for Participation for the 7th RAIL WORKSHOP RAIL workshop https://sadilar.org/en/seventh-workshop-on-resources-for-african-indigenous… Co-located with LREC 2026 https://www.elra.info/lrec2026 RAIL workshop date: 12 May 2026 Conference venue: Palau de Congressos de Palma, Palma de Mallorca (Spain) Theme: Creating resources for less-resourced African languages The seventh Resources for African Indigenous Languages (RAIL) workshop will be co-located with the LREC 2026 conference in Palma, Mallorca (Spain), on 12 May 2026. The RAIL workshop is an interdisciplinary platform for researchers working on African indigenous language resources such as natural language processing (NLP) tools, Human Language Technologies (HLT), data collections, and annotations. This workshop aims to foster a scientific community of practice that focuses on computational linguistic tools and data that are designed for or applied to the indigenous languages of Africa. Many African languages are under-resourced, while only a few are considered to be somewhat better resourced. These languages often share interesting properties such as writing systems, making them different from most high-resourced languages. From a computational perspective, these languages lack enough corpora to undertake high-level development of NLP and HLT tools, which in turn impedes the development of African languages in these areas. During previous workshops, it was noted that the problems and solutions presented were not only applicable to African languages but were also relevant to many other low-resource languages across the world. Because these languages share similar challenges, this workshop provides researchers with opportunities to work collaboratively on issues of language resource development and learn from each other. The RAIL workshop has several aims. First, the workshop brings together researchers who work on African indigenous languages, forming a community of practice for people working on indigenous languages. Second, the workshop aims to reveal currently unknown or unpublished existing resources (corpora, NLP tools, and applications), resulting in a better overview of the current state-of-the-art, and also allows for discussions on novel, desired resources for future research in this area. Third, it enhances the sharing of knowledge regarding the development of low-resource languages. Finally, it enables discussions on how to improve the quality as well as the availability of the resources. Organising Committee Muzi Matfunjwa, South African Centre for Digital Language Resources Mmasibidi Setaka, South African Centre for Digital Language Resources Rooweither Mabuya, South African Centre for Digital Language Resources Menno van Zaanen, South African Centre for Digital Language Resources -- Prof Menno van Zaanen menno.vanzaanen(a)nwu.ac.za Professor in Digital Humanities South African Centre for Digital Language Resources https://www.sadilar.org ________________________________ NWU PRIVACY STATEMENT: http://www.nwu.ac.za/it/gov-man/disclaimer.html DISCLAIMER: This e-mail message and attachments thereto are intended solely for the recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorised review, use, disclosure, or distribution is prohibited. If you have received the e-mail by mistake, please contact the sender or reply e-mail and delete the e-mail and its attachments (where appropriate) from your system. ________________________________

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