European Language Equality in the Digital Age: The Case of Lithuania

Abstract

    The article addresses the current status of Lithuanian language technologies and presents the situation of European language equality in the digital environment. It investigates quantitative and qualitative indicators revealing language equality in the context of the European Union taking into account the number of speakers, digital language resources and technologies and the support to them, with a special focus on the case of Lithuania. The article intends to outline the work which has already been accomplished in the area of language technologies and identify the gaps and challenges which still need to be addressed in the case of Lithuanian as an official national and EU language. It provides the latest overview of the situation of Lithuanian language technologies through the analysis of digital language resources and tools/services. The results show that though a number of changes have occurred in the past ten years, there is still a shortage of language resources in education and other spheres.