Breakthroughs in Tibetan NLP & Digital Humanities

Abstract

The field of Digital Humanities has been transformed in recent years, not just because of advances in computing software and hardware, but in particular because of breakthroughs in Natural Language Processing (NLP). In this introduction to this Special Issue related to the Tibetan NLP and Technology panel at the conference of the International Association of Tibetan Studies (IATS) in Prague in 2022, we give a brief overview of the so-called ‘state-of-the-art’ of NLP and Digital Humanities tools for Tibetan Studies in particular. We aim to provide accessible introductions to the contributions in this Special Issue by other panel members as well as other recent developments in the field of ‘Tibetan Tech’ that could benefit any scholars in the field.