How do you talk to a robot in Arabic? Is it best to address it in the formal language of news broadcasters or as you would speak to a friend?
It is a philosophical question at the heart of what language means and what Arabic is today.
“I usually joke about how even in the Arab imagination we have a black hole,” said Nizar Habash, programme head of computer science at New York University Abu Dhabi.
“How do I talk to a computer or a robot? What would I actually say to it? In what dialect? How would it answer back?”
Mr Habash leads a lab with a seemingly simple goal: to make everyday Arabic understandable to machines.
Our goal, from a technology point of view, is just to try and catch up with what's happening in other languages technologically
Arabic has two forms, the formal literary language called Fusha and myriad dialects, which are often mutually unintelligible. Dialect is the language of daily life but has a lower status.
This second-class standing means everyday technology such as predictive text and speech recognition still do not work well in spoken Arabic.
The NYUAD lab plans to change this.
This year, it will release text prediction software for Gulf Arabic using a collection of 200,000 words compiled last year. The collection, called the Gumar Corpus, opens the door for predictive text, speech recognition and speech synthesis in the dialect.
This is good news for Arabic speakers who want Alexa’s Arabic voice to sound like a neighbour instead of a literature professor.
The development of dialect in computing has not been welcomed by everybody. Formal Arabic still lags behind English and many believe it should be the priority, not dialect.
“People, just by default, think dialects are just bad Arabic,” Mr Habash said. “It’s such an insult to all of this wonderful culture that is celebrated and enjoyed but at the same time denied status.”
There are also technological barriers. Machines can learn languages by comparing identical documents in two languages or similar texts in different languages about the same topic, such as news stories. But news stories and government papers are written in formal Arabic and there are few comparative texts in dialects.
The variety of spellings in dialect is another obstacle.
For Mr Habash, the need for more programming in dialect was self-evident. He was raised in several countries in which different dialects of Arabic are spoken.
The Palestinian was born in Iraq and grew up in Lebanon, Syria, the Soviet Union and Tunisia. At 17, he moved to the US to study linguistics and computer engineering as an undergraduate.
Our goal, from a technology point of view, is just to try and catch up with what's happening in other languages technologically
Programming in dialect was common sense to Mr Habash because it is the language of daily life.
Social media increased the use of written dialect, because it is the language of choice for texting.
“And of course, you know, when it comes to people who cannot read or write, they only have dialect,” he said.
“It is the dominant form in the spoken space, so we have to deal with whatever that means.
“Our goal is to develop a better understanding of the data to build better applications. It’s not to make political statements. Our goal, from a technology point of view, is just to try and catch up with what’s happening in other languages technologically.”
The building blocks of language, found in romantic novels
To do this, the building blocks of language are needed: words.
Each word must be manually labelled, or annotated, with descriptors such as tense and gender. With hundreds of thousands of examples, a computer can teach itself the language.
The more examples are used, the better the prediction.
“People are so fixated about algorithms when they do AI but they don’t ask where the data for algorithms comes from,” Mr Habash said.
“If your data is not done in a proper, consistent way, you’re going to get garbage in and garbage out.”
Formal Arabic has about a million annotated words. The Egyptian dialect, spoken by about 98 million people and a vast diaspora, has 400,000 annotated words.
Levantine Arabic has about 50,000 annotated words and Gulf Arabic has 200,000 annotated words, thanks to the NYUAD project.
To compile its collection of words, the Gumar project had to find non-copyrighted text in dialect, and a lot of it.
Researchers hit the jackpot when they found a directory of 1,200 romantic novels written by anonymous women. The genre was popular in the blogosphere before the rise of social media.
The public directory had more than 100 million words in Gulf Arabic.
The task of annotation began. This is a long process in Arabic, because most vowels are not written and readers decipher words by context. A single written word in Arabic, on average, has three meanings, seven pronunciations and 12 interpretations.
For a computer to guess a word’s vowels and pronunciation, it must first derive meaning from context.
Annotating 200,000 words took three Egyptian linguistics in Alexandria, all former Gulf residents, eight months. This was finished last August. Meanwhile, NYUAD researchers began to train computers to distinguish and translate between dialects.
The politics of language equality
The Madar programme, a collaboration with researchers at Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar, creates comparable data for different dialects.
Its creators have built a 47,000-word lexicon for dialects from 25 different cities, sourcing material from travel books.
Resources from the Gumar and Madar projects are free to university researchers and available for commercial licensing.
Dialect databases matter because they make technology accessible to all, said Mona Diab, a computer science professor at George Washington University.
We are behind because Arabic needs a lot of resources, a lot of investment and this has become very low
“You’re basically giving people first-hand access to information, so I think that’s one of the most important and impactful aspects of dialect and technology,” said Prof Diab, a specialist in natural language processing.
“You won’t need to have an education to understand what’s happening.”
This hit home for Prof Diab when she was a girl in Egypt. Her uncles lived on the Arabian Peninsula during the First Gulf War and her illiterate grandmother relied on her grandchildren to translate televised news about the conflict into her dialect because she couldn't understand the formal Arabic on the broadcast.
“How do you guarantee fairness and equality in the data that you’re using?” she asked.
“How do you use that to create better technology and how do you use that to democratise knowledge?”
Technological investment in dialect requires government support. Otherwise, the Arab world could be left behind.
AI Arabic research is led by the West. If Arabs do not do it themselves, there can be unintended consequences, Prof Diab said.
“There’s always a cultural dimension and a nuance that is going to be missed if you’re not native to the culture. It’s not just about language, it’s about identity. It’s now an opportunity to define our identity outside an occidental or outside perspective.”
Funding for Arabic dropped as western countries reduced their military presence in the Middle East, said Khaled Shaalan, a professor of computer science at the British University in Dubai.
“We are behind because Arabic needs a lot of resources, a lot of investment, and this has become very low,” Prof Shaalan said.
“For example, the United States and many other places stopped funding projects. At the time that there was war, yes, they were interested. But now they have switched to other languages.
“We have the technology now, the computer capacity to do language processing. All we need is the funding to train the career researchers who will work on this. It needs effort.”
Key findings of Jenkins report
- Founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan al Banna, "accepted the political utility of violence"
- Views of key Muslim Brotherhood ideologue, Sayyid Qutb, have “consistently been understood” as permitting “the use of extreme violence in the pursuit of the perfect Islamic society” and “never been institutionally disowned” by the movement.
- Muslim Brotherhood at all levels has repeatedly defended Hamas attacks against Israel, including the use of suicide bombers and the killing of civilians.
- Laying out the report in the House of Commons, David Cameron told MPs: "The main findings of the review support the conclusion that membership of, association with, or influence by the Muslim Brotherhood should be considered as a possible indicator of extremism."
The specs
AT4 Ultimate, as tested
Engine: 6.2-litre V8
Power: 420hp
Torque: 623Nm
Transmission: 10-speed automatic
Price: From Dh330,800 (Elevation: Dh236,400; AT4: Dh286,800; Denali: Dh345,800)
On sale: Now
BUNDESLIGA FIXTURES
Saturday, May 16 (kick-offs UAE time)
Borussia Dortmund v Schalke (4.30pm)
RB Leipzig v Freiburg (4.30pm)
Hoffenheim v Hertha Berlin (4.30pm)
Fortuna Dusseldorf v Paderborn (4.30pm)
Augsburg v Wolfsburg (4.30pm)
Eintracht Frankfurt v Borussia Monchengladbach (7.30pm)
Sunday, May 17
Cologne v Mainz (4.30pm),
Union Berlin v Bayern Munich (7pm)
Monday, May 18
Werder Bremen v Bayer Leverkusen (9.30pm)
John%20Wick%3A%20Chapter%204
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EDirector%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Chad%20Stahelski%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EStars%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Keanu%20Reeves%2C%20Laurence%20Fishburne%2C%20George%20Georgiou%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ERating%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E4%2F5%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
The lowdown
Badla
Rating: 2.5/5
Produced by: Red Chillies, Azure Entertainment
Director: Sujoy Ghosh
Cast: Amitabh Bachchan, Taapsee Pannu, Amrita Singh, Tony Luke
THE SPECS
Engine: 2.0-litre 4-cylinder turbo
Power: 275hp at 6,600rpm
Torque: 353Nm from 1,450-4,700rpm
Transmission: 8-speed dual-clutch auto
Top speed: 250kph
Fuel consumption: 6.8L/100km
On sale: Now
Price: Dh146,999
The End of Loneliness
Benedict Wells
Translated from the German by Charlotte Collins
Sceptre
The view from The National
The most expensive investment mistake you will ever make
When is the best time to start saving in a pension? The answer is simple – at the earliest possible moment. The first pound, euro, dollar or dirham you invest is the most valuable, as it has so much longer to grow in value. If you start in your twenties, it could be invested for 40 years or more, which means you have decades for compound interest to work its magic.
“You get growth upon growth upon growth, followed by more growth. The earlier you start the process, the more it will all roll up,” says Chris Davies, chartered financial planner at The Fry Group in Dubai.
This table shows how much you would have in your pension at age 65, depending on when you start and how much you pay in (it assumes your investments grow 7 per cent a year after charges and you have no other savings).
|
Age
|
$250 a month
|
$500 a month
|
$1,000 a month
|
|
25
|
$640,829
|
$1,281,657
|
$2,563,315
|
|
35
|
$303,219
|
$606,439
|
$1,212,877
|
|
45
|
$131,596
|
$263,191
|
$526,382
|
|
55
|
$44,351
|
$88,702
|
$177,403
|
Know your Camel lingo
The bairaq is a competition for the best herd of 50 camels, named for the banner its winner takes home
Namoos - a word of congratulations reserved for falconry competitions, camel races and camel pageants. It best translates as 'the pride of victory' - and for competitors, it is priceless
Asayel camels - sleek, short-haired hound-like racers
Majahim - chocolate-brown camels that can grow to weigh two tonnes. They were only valued for milk until camel pageantry took off in the 1990s
Millions Street - the thoroughfare where camels are led and where white 4x4s throng throughout the festival
What is cyberbullying?
Cyberbullying or online bullying could take many forms such as sending unkind or rude messages to someone, socially isolating people from groups, sharing embarrassing pictures of them, or spreading rumors about them.
Cyberbullying can take place on various platforms such as messages, on social media, on group chats, or games.
Parents should watch out for behavioural changes in their children.
When children are being bullied they they may be feel embarrassed and isolated, so parents should watch out for signs of signs of depression and anxiety
The 10 Questions
- Is there a God?
- How did it all begin?
- What is inside a black hole?
- Can we predict the future?
- Is time travel possible?
- Will we survive on Earth?
- Is there other intelligent life in the universe?
- Should we colonise space?
- Will artificial intelligence outsmart us?
- How do we shape the future?
INDIA%20SQUAD
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Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
- Priority access to new homes from participating developers
- Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
- Flexible payment plans from developers
- Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
- DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
Company%20profile
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ECompany%20name%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EXare%C2%A0%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarted%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EJanuary%2018%2C%202021%C2%A0%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EFounders%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EPadmini%20Gupta%2C%20Milind%20Singh%2C%20Mandeep%20Singh%C2%A0%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EBased%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EDubai%C2%A0%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ESector%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EFinTech%C2%A0%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EFunds%20Raised%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E%2410%20million%C2%A0%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ECurrent%20number%20of%20staff%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E28%C2%A0%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestment%20stage%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3Eundisclosed%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestors%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EMS%26amp%3BAD%20Ventures%2C%20Middle%20East%20Venture%20Partners%2C%20Astra%20Amco%2C%20the%20Dubai%20International%20Financial%20Centre%2C%20Fintech%20Fund%2C%20500%20Startups%2C%20Khwarizmi%20Ventures%2C%20and%20Phoenician%20Funds%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
The rules on fostering in the UAE
A foster couple or family must:
- be Muslim, Emirati and be residing in the UAE
- not be younger than 25 years old
- not have been convicted of offences or crimes involving moral turpitude
- be free of infectious diseases or psychological and mental disorders
- have the ability to support its members and the foster child financially
- undertake to treat and raise the child in a proper manner and take care of his or her health and well-being
- A single, divorced or widowed Muslim Emirati female, residing in the UAE may apply to foster a child if she is at least 30 years old and able to support the child financially
The specs
Engine: Direct injection 4-cylinder 1.4-litre
Power: 150hp
Torque: 250Nm
Price: From Dh139,000
On sale: Now
Results
3pm: Handicap (PA) Dh40,000 (Dirt) 1,000m; Winner: Dhafra, Antonio Fresu (jockey), Eric Lemartinel (trainer)
3.30pm: Maiden (PA) Dh40,000 (D) 2,000m; Winner: Al Ajayib, Antonio Fresu, Eric Lemartinel
4pm: Handicap (PA) Dh40,000 (D) 1,700m; Winner: Ashtr, Abdul Aziz Al Balushi, Majed Al Jahouri
4.30pm: Handicap (TB) Dh40,000 (D) 1,700m; Winner: Falcon Claws, Szczepan Mazur, Doug Watson
5pm: Sheikh Dr Sultan bin Khalifa Al Nahyan Cup – Prestige Handicap (PA) Dh100,000 (D) 1,700m; Winner: Al Mufham SB, Al Moatasem Al Balushi, Badar Al Hajri
5.30pm: Sharjah Marathon – Handicap (PA) Dh70,000 (D) 2,700m; Winner: Asraa Min Al Talqa, Al Moatasem Al Balushi, Helal Al Alawi
Our legal consultants
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
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%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EEngine%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E2-litre%204-cylinder%20mild%20hybrid%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ETransmission%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E7-speed%20S%20tronic%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EPower%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E265hp%20%2F%20195kW%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ETorque%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20370Nm%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EPrice%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3Efrom%20Dh260%2C000%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EOn%20sale%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20now%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
The biog
Name: Dhabia Khalifa AlQubaisi
Age: 23
How she spends spare time: Playing with cats at the clinic and feeding them
Inspiration: My father. He’s a hard working man who has been through a lot to provide us with everything we need
Favourite book: Attitude, emotions and the psychology of cats by Dr Nicholes Dodman
Favourit film: 101 Dalmatians - it remind me of my childhood and began my love of dogs
Word of advice: By being patient, good things will come and by staying positive you’ll have the will to continue to love what you're doing
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
RESULTS
5pm: Handicap (PA) Dh80,000 (Turf) 2,200m
Winner: Jawal Al Reef, Fernando Jara (jockey), Ahmed Al Mehairbi (trainer)
5.30pm: Handicap (PA) Dh80,000 (T) 1,600m
Winner: AF Seven Skies, Bernardo Pinheiro, Qais Aboud
6pm: Maiden (PA) Dh80,000 (T) 1,200m
Winner: Almahroosa, Fabrice Veron, Eric Lemartinel
6.30pm: Maiden (PA) Dh80,000 (T) 1,200m
Winner: AF Sumoud, Tadhg O’Shea, Ernst Oertel
7pm: Wathba Stallions Cup Handicap (PA) Dh70,000 (T) 1,200m
Winner: AF Majalis, Tadhg O’Shea, Ernst Oertel
7.30pm: Handicap (TB) Dh90,000 (T) 1,400m
Winner: Adventurous, Sandro Paiva, Ali Rashid Al Raihe
