MasakhaNER: Named Entity Recognition for African Languages
Computation and Language
2021-07-06 v2 Artificial Intelligence
Abstract
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. We detail characteristics of the languages to help researchers understand the challenges that these languages pose for NER. We analyze our datasets and conduct an extensive empirical evaluation of state-of-the-art methods across both supervised and transfer learning settings. We release the data, code, and models in order to inspire future research on African NLP.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2103.11811,
title = {MasakhaNER: Named Entity Recognition for African Languages},
author = {David Ifeoluwa Adelani and Jade Abbott and Graham Neubig and Daniel D'souza and Julia Kreutzer and Constantine Lignos and Chester Palen-Michel and Happy Buzaaba and Shruti Rijhwani and Sebastian Ruder and Stephen Mayhew and Israel Abebe Azime and Shamsuddeen Muhammad and Chris Chinenye Emezue and Joyce Nakatumba-Nabende and Perez Ogayo and Anuoluwapo Aremu and Catherine Gitau and Derguene Mbaye and Jesujoba Alabi and Seid Muhie Yimam and Tajuddeen Gwadabe and Ignatius Ezeani and Rubungo Andre Niyongabo and Jonathan Mukiibi and Verrah Otiende and Iroro Orife and Davis David and Samba Ngom and Tosin Adewumi and Paul Rayson and Mofetoluwa Adeyemi and Gerald Muriuki and Emmanuel Anebi and Chiamaka Chukwuneke and Nkiruka Odu and Eric Peter Wairagala and Samuel Oyerinde and Clemencia Siro and Tobius Saul Bateesa and Temilola Oloyede and Yvonne Wambui and Victor Akinode and Deborah Nabagereka and Maurice Katusiime and Ayodele Awokoya and Mouhamadane MBOUP and Dibora Gebreyohannes and Henok Tilaye and Kelechi Nwaike and Degaga Wolde and Abdoulaye Faye and Blessing Sibanda and Orevaoghene Ahia and Bonaventure F. P. Dossou and Kelechi Ogueji and Thierno Ibrahima DIOP and Abdoulaye Diallo and Adewale Akinfaderin and Tendai Marengereke and Salomey Osei},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2103.11811},
year = {2021}
}
Comments
Accepted to TACL 2021, pre-MIT Press publication version