FFR v1.1: Fon-French Neural Machine Translation

no code implementations • WS 2020 • Chris Chinenye Emezue, Femi Pancrace Bonaventure Dossou

All over the world and especially in Africa, researchers are putting efforts into building Neural Machine Translation (NMT) systems to help tackle the language barriers in Africa, a continent of over 2000 different languages.

Machine Translation NMT +1

Crowd-sourced Phrase-Based Tokenization for Low-Resourced Neural Machine Translation: The case of Fon Language

no code implementations • 1 Jan 2021 • Bonaventure F. P. Dossou, Chris Chinenye Emezue

Building effective neural machine translation (NMT) models for very low-resourced and morphologically rich African indigenous languages is an open challenge.

Machine Translation NMT +1

MasakhaNER: Named Entity Recognition for African Languages

2 code implementations • 22 Mar 2021 • David Ifeoluwa Adelani, Jade Abbott, Graham Neubig, Daniel D'souza, Julia Kreutzer, Constantine Lignos, Chester Palen-Michel, Happy Buzaaba, Shruti Rijhwani, Sebastian Ruder, Stephen Mayhew, Israel Abebe Azime, Shamsuddeen Muhammad, Chris Chinenye Emezue, Joyce Nakatumba-Nabende, Perez Ogayo, Anuoluwapo Aremu, Catherine Gitau, Derguene Mbaye, Jesujoba Alabi, Seid Muhie Yimam, Tajuddeen Gwadabe, Ignatius Ezeani, Rubungo Andre Niyongabo, Jonathan Mukiibi, Verrah Otiende, Iroro Orife, Davis David, Samba Ngom, Tosin Adewumi, Paul Rayson, Mofetoluwa Adeyemi, Gerald Muriuki, Emmanuel Anebi, Chiamaka Chukwuneke, Nkiruka Odu, Eric Peter Wairagala, Samuel Oyerinde, Clemencia Siro, Tobius Saul Bateesa, Temilola Oloyede, Yvonne Wambui, Victor Akinode, Deborah Nabagereka, Maurice Katusiime, Ayodele Awokoya, Mouhamadane MBOUP, Dibora Gebreyohannes, Henok Tilaye, Kelechi Nwaike, Degaga Wolde, Abdoulaye Faye, Blessing Sibanda, Orevaoghene Ahia, Bonaventure F. P. Dossou, Kelechi Ogueji, Thierno Ibrahima DIOP, Abdoulaye Diallo, Adewale Akinfaderin, Tendai Marengereke, Salomey Osei

We take a step towards addressing the under-representation of the African continent in NLP research by creating the first large publicly available high-quality dataset for named entity recognition (NER) in ten African languages, bringing together a variety of stakeholders.

named-entity-recognition Named Entity Recognition +2

NaijaSenti: A Nigerian Twitter Sentiment Corpus for Multilingual Sentiment Analysis

2 code implementations • LREC 2022 • Shamsuddeen Hassan Muhammad, David Ifeoluwa Adelani, Sebastian Ruder, Ibrahim Said Ahmad, Idris Abdulmumin, Bello Shehu Bello, Monojit Choudhury, Chris Chinenye Emezue, Saheed Salahudeen Abdullahi, Anuoluwapo Aremu, Alipio Jeorge, Pavel Brazdil

We introduce the first large-scale human-annotated Twitter sentiment dataset for the four most widely spoken languages in Nigeria (Hausa, Igbo, Nigerian-Pidgin, and Yor\`ub\'a ) consisting of around 30, 000 annotated tweets per language (and 14, 000 for Nigerian-Pidgin), including a significant fraction of code-mixed tweets.

Sentiment Analysis

A Few Thousand Translations Go a Long Way! Leveraging Pre-trained Models for African News Translation

1 code implementation • NAACL 2022 • David Ifeoluwa Adelani, Jesujoba Oluwadara Alabi, Angela Fan, Julia Kreutzer, Xiaoyu Shen, Machel Reid, Dana Ruiter, Dietrich Klakow, Peter Nabende, Ernie Chang, Tajuddeen Gwadabe, Freshia Sackey, Bonaventure F. P. Dossou, Chris Chinenye Emezue, Colin Leong, Michael Beukman, Shamsuddeen Hassan Muhammad, Guyo Dub Jarso, Oreen Yousuf, Andre Niyongabo Rubungo, Gilles Hacheme, Eric Peter Wairagala, Muhammad Umair Nasir, Benjamin Ayoade Ajibade, Tunde Oluwaseyi Ajayi, Yvonne Wambui Gitau, Jade Abbott, Mohamed Ahmed, Millicent Ochieng, Anuoluwapo Aremu, Perez Ogayo, Jonathan Mukiibi, Fatoumata Ouoba Kabore, Godson Koffi Kalipe, Derguene Mbaye, Allahsera Auguste Tapo, Victoire Memdjokam Koagne, Edwin Munkoh-Buabeng, Valencia Wagner, Idris Abdulmumin, Ayodele Awokoya, Happy Buzaaba, Blessing Sibanda, Andiswa Bukula, Sam Manthalu

We focus on two questions: 1) How can pre-trained models be used for languages not included in the initial pre-training?

Translation

MasakhaNER 2.0: Africa-centric Transfer Learning for Named Entity Recognition

1 code implementation • 22 Oct 2022 • David Ifeoluwa Adelani, Graham Neubig, Sebastian Ruder, Shruti Rijhwani, Michael Beukman, Chester Palen-Michel, Constantine Lignos, Jesujoba O. Alabi, Shamsuddeen H. Muhammad, Peter Nabende, Cheikh M. Bamba Dione, Andiswa Bukula, Rooweither Mabuya, Bonaventure F. P. Dossou, Blessing Sibanda, Happy Buzaaba, Jonathan Mukiibi, Godson Kalipe, Derguene Mbaye, Amelia Taylor, Fatoumata Kabore, Chris Chinenye Emezue, Anuoluwapo Aremu, Perez Ogayo, Catherine Gitau, Edwin Munkoh-Buabeng, Victoire M. Koagne, Allahsera Auguste Tapo, Tebogo Macucwa, Vukosi Marivate, Elvis Mboning, Tajuddeen Gwadabe, Tosin Adewumi, Orevaoghene Ahia, Joyce Nakatumba-Nabende, Neo L. Mokono, Ignatius Ezeani, Chiamaka Chukwuneke, Mofetoluwa Adeyemi, Gilles Q. Hacheme, Idris Abdulmumin, Odunayo Ogundepo, Oreen Yousuf, Tatiana Moteu Ngoli, Dietrich Klakow

African languages are spoken by over a billion people, but are underrepresented in NLP research and development.

Cross-Lingual Transfer named-entity-recognition +3

AfroLM: A Self-Active Learning-based Multilingual Pretrained Language Model for 23 African Languages

1 code implementation • 7 Nov 2022 • Bonaventure F. P. Dossou, Atnafu Lambebo Tonja, Oreen Yousuf, Salomey Osei, Abigail Oppong, Iyanuoluwa Shode, Oluwabusayo Olufunke Awoyomi, Chris Chinenye Emezue

In this paper, we present AfroLM, a multilingual language model pretrained from scratch on 23 African languages (the largest effort to date) using our novel self-active learning framework.

Active Learning Language Modelling +4

AfroDigits: A Community-Driven Spoken Digit Dataset for African Languages

no code implementations • 22 Mar 2023 • Chris Chinenye Emezue, Sanchit Gandhi, Lewis Tunstall, Abubakar Abid, Josh Meyer, Quentin Lhoest, Pete Allen, Patrick von Platen, Douwe Kiela, Yacine Jernite, Julien Chaumond, Merve Noyan, Omar Sanseviero

The advancement of speech technologies has been remarkable, yet its integration with African languages remains limited due to the scarcity of African speech corpora.

Adapting to the Low-Resource Double-Bind: Investigating Low-Compute Methods on Low-Resource African Languages

no code implementations • 29 Mar 2023 • Colin Leong, Herumb Shandilya, Bonaventure F. P. Dossou, Atnafu Lambebo Tonja, Joel Mathew, Abdul-Hakeem Omotayo, Oreen Yousuf, Zainab Akinjobi, Chris Chinenye Emezue, Shamsudeen Muhammad, Steven Kolawole, Younwoo Choi, Tosin Adewumi

In this work, we explore the applicability of low-compute approaches such as language adapters in the context of this low-resource double-bind.

MasakhaNEWS: News Topic Classification for African languages

1 code implementation • 19 Apr 2023 • David Ifeoluwa Adelani, Marek Masiak, Israel Abebe Azime, Jesujoba Alabi, Atnafu Lambebo Tonja, Christine Mwase, Odunayo Ogundepo, Bonaventure F. P. Dossou, Akintunde Oladipo, Doreen Nixdorf, Chris Chinenye Emezue, sana al-azzawi, Blessing Sibanda, Davis David, Lolwethu Ndolela, Jonathan Mukiibi, Tunde Ajayi, Tatiana Moteu, Brian Odhiambo, Abraham Owodunni, Nnaemeka Obiefuna, Muhidin Mohamed, Shamsuddeen Hassan Muhammad, Teshome Mulugeta Ababu, Saheed Abdullahi Salahudeen, Mesay Gemeda Yigezu, Tajuddeen Gwadabe, Idris Abdulmumin, Mahlet Taye, Oluwabusayo Awoyomi, Iyanuoluwa Shode, Tolulope Adelani, Habiba Abdulganiyu, Abdul-Hakeem Omotayo, Adetola Adeeko, Abeeb Afolabi, Anuoluwapo Aremu, Olanrewaju Samuel, Clemencia Siro, Wangari Kimotho, Onyekachi Ogbu, Chinedu Mbonu, Chiamaka Chukwuneke, Samuel Fanijo, Jessica Ojo, Oyinkansola Awosan, Tadesse Kebede, Toadoum Sari Sakayo, Pamela Nyatsine, Freedmore Sidume, Oreen Yousuf, Mardiyyah Oduwole, Tshinu Tshinu, Ussen Kimanuka, Thina Diko, Siyanda Nxakama, Sinodos Nigusse, Abdulmejid Johar, Shafie Mohamed, Fuad Mire Hassan, Moges Ahmed Mehamed, Evrard Ngabire, Jules Jules, Ivan Ssenkungu, Pontus Stenetorp

Furthermore, we explore several alternatives to full fine-tuning of language models that are better suited for zero-shot and few-shot learning such as cross-lingual parameter-efficient fine-tuning (like MAD-X), pattern exploiting training (PET), prompting language models (like ChatGPT), and prompt-free sentence transformer fine-tuning (SetFit and Cohere Embedding API).

Classification Few-Shot Learning +6

MasakhaPOS: Part-of-Speech Tagging for Typologically Diverse African Languages

1 code implementation • 23 May 2023 • Cheikh M. Bamba Dione, David Adelani, Peter Nabende, Jesujoba Alabi, Thapelo Sindane, Happy Buzaaba, Shamsuddeen Hassan Muhammad, Chris Chinenye Emezue, Perez Ogayo, Anuoluwapo Aremu, Catherine Gitau, Derguene Mbaye, Jonathan Mukiibi, Blessing Sibanda, Bonaventure F. P. Dossou, Andiswa Bukula, Rooweither Mabuya, Allahsera Auguste Tapo, Edwin Munkoh-Buabeng, Victoire Memdjokam Koagne, Fatoumata Ouoba Kabore, Amelia Taylor, Godson Kalipe, Tebogo Macucwa, Vukosi Marivate, Tajuddeen Gwadabe, Mboning Tchiaze Elvis, Ikechukwu Onyenwe, Gratien Atindogbe, Tolulope Adelani, Idris Akinade, Olanrewaju Samuel, Marien Nahimana, Théogène Musabeyezu, Emile Niyomutabazi, Ester Chimhenga, Kudzai Gotosa, Patrick Mizha, Apelete Agbolo, Seydou Traore, Chinedu Uchechukwu, Aliyu Yusuf, Muhammad Abdullahi, Dietrich Klakow

In this paper, we present MasakhaPOS, the largest part-of-speech (POS) dataset for 20 typologically diverse African languages.

Cross-Lingual Transfer Part-Of-Speech Tagging +2

AfriNames: Most ASR models "butcher" African Names

no code implementations • 1 Jun 2023 • Tobi Olatunji, Tejumade Afonja, Bonaventure F. P. Dossou, Atnafu Lambebo Tonja, Chris Chinenye Emezue, Amina Mardiyyah Rufai, Sahib Singh

Useful conversational agents must accurately capture named entities to minimize error for downstream tasks, for example, asking a voice assistant to play a track from a certain artist, initiating navigation to a specific location, or documenting a laboratory result for a patient.

Automatic Speech Recognition Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) +2

Adapting Pretrained ASR Models to Low-resource Clinical Speech using Epistemic Uncertainty-based Data Selection

no code implementations • 3 Jun 2023 • Bonaventure F. P. Dossou, Atnafu Lambebo Tonja, Chris Chinenye Emezue, Tobi Olatunji, Naome A Etori, Salomey Osei, Tosin Adewumi, Sahib Singh

While there has been significant progress in ASR, African-accented clinical ASR has been understudied due to a lack of training datasets.

Out-of-Distribution Generalization

Benchmarking Bayesian Causal Discovery Methods for Downstream Treatment Effect Estimation

no code implementations • 11 Jul 2023 • Chris Chinenye Emezue, Alexandre Drouin, Tristan Deleu, Stefan Bauer, Yoshua Bengio

Nevertheless, a notable gap exists in the evaluation of causal discovery methods, where insufficient emphasis is placed on downstream inference.

Benchmarking Causal Discovery +2

AfriSpeech-200: Pan-African Accented Speech Dataset for Clinical and General Domain ASR

no code implementations • 30 Sep 2023 • Tobi Olatunji, Tejumade Afonja, Aditya Yadavalli, Chris Chinenye Emezue, Sahib Singh, Bonaventure F. P. Dossou, Joanne Osuchukwu, Salomey Osei, Atnafu Lambebo Tonja, Naome Etori, Clinton Mbataku

To our knowledge, there is no publicly available research or benchmark on accented African clinical ASR, and speech data is non-existent for the majority of African accents.

Automatic Speech Recognition Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) +1

Text Categorization Can Enhance Domain-Agnostic Stopword Extraction

no code implementations • 24 Jan 2024 • Houcemeddine Turki, Naome A. Etori, Mohamed Ali Hadj Taieb, Abdul-Hakeem Omotayo, Chris Chinenye Emezue, Mohamed Ben Aouicha, Ayodele Awokoya, Falalu Ibrahim Lawan, Doreen Nixdorf

This paper investigates the role of text categorization in streamlining stopword extraction in natural language processing (NLP), specifically focusing on nine African languages alongside French.

Text Categorization

AccentFold: A Journey through African Accents for Zero-Shot ASR Adaptation to Target Accents

no code implementations • 2 Feb 2024 • Abraham Toluwase Owodunni, Aditya Yadavalli, Chris Chinenye Emezue, Tobi Olatunji, Clinton C Mbataku

While previous approaches have focused on modeling techniques or creating accented speech datasets, gathering sufficient data for the multitude of accents, particularly in the African context, remains impractical due to their sheer diversity and associated budget constraints.

Automatic Speech Recognition Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) +1