Språkbanken (Swedish Language Bank)

To the best of our knowledge, human language is unique.

It pervades and defines all aspects of our existence.In research, language displays a conspicuous duality: it doubles as an object of study and as a tool for scientific investigation: knowledge about an object of study is gained through language.

The Språkbanken research infrastructure reflects this dual role of language: it is built on a fundament of language resources and language technology (LT) to support research in LT and linguistics – with language itself (as artifact and as behavior) as the object of study – and any scientific enquiry where language is a research data source, notably the humanities and social sciences.

LT research results often lead to better language tools, allowing new kinds of investigations or broader-scope studies.

Thus, Språkbanken implements a “virtuous circle”, where the results of the research it supports are brought back and integrated into it, directly improving the infrastructure.Language is the glue which keeps our modern societies together, and thus technological advances resulting from research in LT and language-centric artificial intelligence (AI) now fundamentally impact most aspects of our existence.

It is important to keep Swedish LT abreast of the international development in LT and AI.

A continued joint national effort aiming at maintaining and developing an infrastructure with language databases and tools for Swedish is a strategic necessity in promoting Swedish LT.