SIGUL is a joint special interest group of the ELRA Language Resources Association (ELRA) and the International Speech Communication Association (ISCA).

In October 2016 ELRA had already set up the Workgroup on Less-Resourced Languages (LRL)¹, with the mission to support the maintenance of linguistic diversity through technology and ICT.

Since Language Resources and Technologies represent a key component for any language-based technology, in April 2017 ELRA and ISCA set up the Special Interest Group on Under-resourced Languages (SIGUL) with the intent of focusing on the particular needs and requirements of under-resourced languages.

Through their participation in SIGUL, ELRA and ISCA reassert their active involvement in contributing to enhance the support for languages with little or no technological support.

_{¹ LRL was convened by Claudia Soria, a Researcher at the Institute for Computational Linguistics “Antonio Zampolli” of the National Research Council of Italy (CNR-ILC). She is among the authors of the META-NET White Paper “The Italian language in the digital age”. Her research interests revolve around the use of language technologies for the protection and enhancement of linguistic diversity and intangible cultural heritage. She was the coordinator of DLDP – The Digital Language Diversity Project (funded by the European Commission under the Erasmus+ Programme) and is currently actively involved in various initiatives concerning the relationship between technology and minority languages, including SIGUL.}