Linguistic Modelling Department

Computational linguistics activities in Bulgaria have their origins in a period lasting a little more than a decade (1964 -1976). A group “Machine Translation and Mathematical Linguistics” existed then at the Institute of Mathematics of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences with a research program devoted to the problems of machine translation (MT) and to quantitative and statistical studies of Bulgarian language. Lead by Prof. Alexander Ljudskanov – an energetic pioneer of computer applications to language – the group made some important first steps in Russian-Bulgarian automatic translation and its achievements marked the beginning of a professional approach to the field. (This is the Bulgarian MT group mentioned by John Hutchins as “a research group established in mid-1960s”).

The Linguistic Modelling Department (LMD) is a direct descendant of Ljudskanov’s group: not only because his co-workers are members of LMD, but also through the continuation of the spirit of his research. Although nowadays MT and machine aided translation (MAT) remain one of the most important aspects of computer applications to natural language, time has added other, equally important, concerns. All these issues form the core of a field called recently Human Language Technology (HLT).

LMD is one of the very few groups in Eastern Europe, whose kernel was preserved during the last twenty years as one administrative and scientific unit. It still keeps its (personal) contacts to the main HLT players an all Eastern countries, including Russia and other New Independent States. This partly stems from the fact that LMD professors used to work in NLP many years ago and they still know the magority of Eastern actors in HLT. But, additionally, LMD staff members successfully switched from the older Eastern academic style to collaboration on project basis with major European research institutions. While in the 80-ties of the last century the main LMD tasks were oriented to computational modelling of Bulgarian language, in the 90-ties LMD participated actively in international projects, funded by different European institutions. Today the group is active in a number of advanced LT fields including both development of linguistic resources and implementation of software applications.