Feriji：一个法语-扎尔马语平行语料库、词汇表与翻译器
Feriji: A French-Zarma Parallel Corpus, Glossary & Translator
- Ashesi University（阿希西大学）
- Rochester Institute of Technology（罗切斯特理工学院）
机构由 AI 辅助整理，请以论文原文为准。
AI总结：
针对非洲扎尔马语机器翻译资源匮乏的问题，研究构建了首个法语-扎尔马语平行语料库Feriji及配套词汇表，微调大语言模型取得30.06的BLEU得分，助力填补该语言的资源缺口。
AI中文摘要：
机器翻译（MT）是一个快速发展的领域，近年来随着能够以极高准确率翻译多种语言的模型的开发，该领域取得了重大进展。然而，由于语言复杂性和资源有限，非洲语言在该领域的代表性仍有待提升。扎尔马语（Zarma）便是如此，它是尼罗-撒哈拉语系桑海语（Songhay）的一种方言，尼日尔及周边国家有超过500万人使用该语言。本文介绍了Feriji——首个专为机器翻译构建的可靠法语-扎尔马语平行语料库及词汇表。该语料库包含61085个扎尔马语句子和42789个法语句子，另有含4062个单词的词汇表，这是满足扎尔马语资源需求进程中的重要一步。我们在该数据集上微调了三个大语言模型，表现最佳的模型BLEU得分达到30.06。我们还通过人工评估了模型的流畅度、可理解性和可读性，以及该语料库和模型的重要性与影响力。我们的研究成果有助于弥合显著的语言鸿沟，推广这一门重要却被忽视的非洲本土语言。
英文摘要：
Machine translation (MT) is a rapidly expanding field that has experienced significant advancements in recent years with the development of models capable of translating multiple languages with remarkable accuracy. However, the representation of African languages in this field still needs to improve due to linguistic complexities and limited resources. This applies to the Zarma language, a dialect of Songhay (of the Nilo-Saharan language family) spoken by over 5 million people across Niger and neighboring countries \cite{lewis2016ethnologue}. This paper introduces Feriji, the first robust French-Zarma parallel corpus and glossary designed for MT. The corpus, containing 61,085 sentences in Zarma and 42,789 in French, and a glossary of 4,062 words represent a significant step in addressing the need for more resources for Zarma. We fine-tune three large language models on our dataset, obtaining a BLEU score of 30.06 on the best-performing model. We further evaluate the models on human judgments of fluency, comprehension, and readability and the importance and impact of the corpus and models. Our contributions help to bridge a significant language gap and promote an essential and overlooked indigenous African language.
