Developing local languages repository system using semantic web technology

A language contains complex history and knowledge of human kinds. Hence, we have to conserve the language in order to conserve the history and knowledge of our ancestors to the next generation. Currently, there are a lot of local languages that are endangered due to the extensive use of national language in daily practices. This could make us losing of historical and knowledge richness from our local ancestors. One way to conserve the local language is by learning and making research on that language. However, current approaches for learning and making research on local language is hard and time-consuming, due to the limitation of domain experts. Current method to learn and research on local language is based on offline media, e.g., books, that have limitation on access and distribution. To solve these problems, we proposed a language repository system based on semantic web technology. We created LangIT, a language intelligent repository system to facilitate the users to learn and conduct research on a local language. LangIT is developed by using semantic web technology to enable a faster, easier, and more efficient data access compared to the traditional approach. We used Sundanese language as case for our system. Major result shows that LangIT is very useful for learning and researching Indonesian local language and extendable for other purposes on using the local languages.