February 21, 2025, a meeting of the International Scientific Seminar of the Ukrainian Lingua-Information Foundation of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine — “INFORMATION. LANGUAGE. INTELLIGENCE” — was held to mark International Mother Language Day.

Seminar theme:

“LANGUAGE AND CULTURE: ON THE WAY TO THE NOOSPHERE (Lexicographic Aspect)”

The event brought together participants from across Ukraine and abroad — Kyiv, Kharkiv, Sumy, Poltava region, Vinnytsia region, Uman, Lviv, Poland, Germany, Turkey, and others — including representatives of government, academic and public organizations, and the mass media. They met in a virtual space, united by their common work in researching, promoting, and strengthening the native language.

Participants discussed pressing linguistic issues that have acquired unprecedented global relevance. The most important aspects of today’s language agenda are, first and foremost, linked to the changing world order and the scientific and technological revolution in artificial intelligence.

Welcome addresses were delivered by:

• Vice-President of NASU, Academician S. I. Pyrozhkov;

• President of the National Centre “Junior Academy of Sciences of Ukraine,” Academician S. O. Dovhyi;

• Chair of the NASU Scientific-Publishing Council, Academician Ya. S. Yatskiv;

• Head of the Central Research Institute of Armaments and Military Equipment of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Corresponding Member of NASU, Major General I. B. Chepkov;

• Chief Researcher of the National Academy of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, Academician of the National Academy of Legal Sciences of Ukraine, General V. I. Shakun;

• Director of the T. H. Shevchenko Institute of Literature, Academician M. H. Zhulynskyi;

• Academic Secretary of the Department of Informatics of NASU, Academician O. M. Khimich;

• Chair of the NASU Scientific Council on the problems “Information. Language. Intelligence,” Academician O. V. Palagin.

Having heard and discussed scholarly reports by Academician of NASU Volodymyr SHYROKOV, Corresponding Member of NASU Oleksandr TARANENKO, Leading Researcher of the Ukrainian Lingua-Information Foundation of NASU Ihor SHEVCHENKO, and Head of Department at the Ukrainian Lingua-Information Foundation of NASU Maksym NADUTENKO, the participants of the International Scholarly Seminar “Information. Language. Intelligence” affirmed the relevance of the issues under discussion amid current crises and the importance of addressing complex and fundamentally new problems concerning the intellectual properties of language and their practical applications, above all in the interests of national security and defense.

The need is becoming ever more urgent to fundamentally reassess the content, practice, and status of basic research and applied development in information-linguistic artificial intelligence technologies grounded in natural language. The participants consider the top priority to be the creation of a modern national system of linguistic resources and a corresponding infrastructure aimed at use in fundamentally new AI technologies. Achieving this goal requires a fundamental reconsideration of the role and status of Ukrainian lexicography and foundational lexicographic works as the primary source of national linguistic resources, together with the decisive digitalization of this field based on the theory and technology of lexicographic systems.

In view of the above, the participants deem it necessary to:

1. Appeal to the Government of Ukraine to ensure unconditional funding for the measures of the State Target National Cultural Program for Ensuring the Comprehensive Development and Functioning of the Ukrainian Language as the State Language in All Spheres of Public Life for the Period up to 2030, approved by Order of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine of March 15, 2024, No. 243-r.

2. Supplement the Program with measures aimed at meeting the needs of national security and defense in intellectual linguistic technologies and resources (see Annex).

3. Propose that NASU, the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine (MESU), the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy, and the Ministry of Digital Transformation take concrete steps toward establishing a modern system of linguistic resources of Ukraine, with special emphasis on the lexicographic component of these resources — the National Dictionary Base of Ukraine (NDBU), in particular:

   • Recognize and formally confer on the dictionaries included in the NDBU the status of fundamental scholarly works. Recommend that the relevant NASU and MESU committees assign the highest rating metrics in publication-activity assessments to NDBU dictionaries — not lower than those for publications indexed in Scopus, Web of Science, and analogous databases.

   • Include NDBU dictionary works (primarily digital) in the list of strategic scholarly achievements considered in forming state orders, allocating funding, and conducting competitions and attestation of research personnel.

   • Grant the “Dictionary of the Ukrainian Language” system the status of national cultural heritage of Ukraine, with inclusion in the State Register of National Cultural Heritage.

4. Propose that the NASU Presidium approve a departmental program of research aimed at developing a scientific picture of the world on noospheric and general-evolutionary principles. As a first necessary step in NASU’s research digitalization plan, consider the design and creation of an integrated, virtualized, Academy-wide knowledge system based on intelligent language-information technologies.

5. Consider it expedient to update Ukraine’s regulatory and legal framework in the information sphere and the sphere of scientific-technical activity, with special attention to the correctness of definitions of basic concepts — information, open science, open data, public data, etc. — eliminating contradictions with the requirements of academic freedom and copyright.

6. Recognizing the urgent need for the practical implementation of the strong scientific achievements of the Ukrainian Lingua-Information Foundation of NASU in computer lexicography, corpus linguistics, and language-intelligent processing technologies, request that the leadership of MESU and NASU organize the following work at the Foundation:

   • Development of methodological materials (manuals, guidelines, etc.) on the use of the Foundation’s resources (the Integrated Lexicographic System “Dictionaries of Ukraine”, virtual lexicographic laboratories, linguistic corpora) in educational institutions of Ukraine for students, postgraduate and doctoral students in communicative specialties (philology, journalism, information science, law, etc.).

   • Adaptation of the theory of lexicographic systems and the theory of semantic states for students of philology faculties in the form of a modern textbook.

Seminar video:

“LANGUAGE AND CULTURE: ON THE WAY TO THE NOOSPHERE (Lexicographic Aspect)”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0_5RuEpV30

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