Arménien à l'Inalco

When Humanities and AI actually talk to each other!

Last week's international summer school "Digital Humanities, Under-Resourced Languages and Armenian" (Yerevan, 6-10 July 2026) was a great entry point into what digital humanities are about: not humanities using AI, or AI applied to humanities, but a real back and forth between the two. The school builds on the ANR DALiH project (Digitising Armenian Linguistic Heritage), which has been driving this work for several years, with worldwide experts from public institutions and private companies, from the DH master program of Université PSL, and so on.

▶️ Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) shapes AI. Building reliable models for under-resourced languages needs linguistic and cultural expertise from the start. Social sciences raise the questions that keep NLP development grounded, ethical, and representative.

◀️ AI scales SSH research. In return, technologies like HTR/OCR, speech processing, and model adaptation give researchers the means to explore textual and oral archives at a scale that wasn't possible before.
This goes beyond academia: how we preserve, transmit, and give access to under-resourced languages is a question for society as a whole.

A really good and practical entry point into all this in Armenia, and a big thank you to the organizers, Victoria Khurshudian (PI of ANR DALiH, Inalco) • Hasmik Knyazyan Crisis and Memory: Digital Oral History Laboratory ) • Chahan Vidal-Gorène (Calfa, École nationale des chartes-PSL) ;

to all experts: Marie Puren • Timofey Arkhangelskiy • Damien Nouvel • Santiago Herrera • Petr Kocharov • Marat Yavrumyan • Karen Avetisyan • Salomé Chandora • Ilaine Wang • Seda Kirakosyan • Edita Matevosyan • Marie Bizais-Lillig • Haykuhi Aleksanyan • Yaelle Zribi • Samuel Chakmadjian • Arthur Malajyan • Gayane Shagoyan • Nadi Tomeh • Hossep Dolatian • Denise Atzori • Florian CAFIERO • Vincent Jolivet • Sipana Tchakerian;

and to all partners: Inalco - Langues O' (organizer) • Crisis and Memory: Digital Oral History Laboratory (organizer) • Calfa (organizer) • ANR (Agence nationale de la recherche) • LIPN • Projet SPHINX | Sciences du Patrimoine, Héritage, Innovation, Enjeux • École nationale des chartes l PSL • TUMO Center for Creative Technologies • Armenian Cultural Heritage Institute • CAST • HumaNum consortium Distam+ • ERTIM • SeDyL • EFL.

Special thank to American University of Armenia and Armenian Cultural Heritage Institute for welcoming us during these days.

With the support of Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation - Armenian Communities

After three fascinating days at the American University of Armenia, featuring excellent panels on NLP methods—ranging from open OCR and automatic transcription of manuscripts to open models for speech recognition and heritage image annotation—and a brilliant keynote by Marie Puren (EPITA) on how digital humanities drive new computational methods, we are ready for the final two days for heritage document classification, Armenian dialectology, open science and projects feedbacks!

Don't miss the last keynote on Friday evening at Tumo Studios!
With Inalco, and Crisis and Memory: Digital Oral History Laboratory.

🎓 We are pleased to share the full program for the upcoming International Summer School, "Digital Humanities, Under-Resourced Languages and Armenian."

The event will take place in Yerevan from July 6th to July 10th at the American University of Armenia and TUMO Center for Creative Technologies (TUMO Studios).

Led by international experts, the program features a wide range of teaching sessions, tutorials, keynotes, and project feedback sessions covering in particular:
- OCR and HTR for Armenian
- Large Language Models (LLMs) for language documentation
- Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) for Armenian dialects
- Digital initiatives in dialectology and heritage valorization

📌 Full Program: https://dh4armenian.sciencesconf.org

📌 Keynotes and poster session are open to public, on registration. See the website for details and registration.

This initiative is organized as part of the ANR DALiH (Digitising Armenian Linguistic Heritage) project (Inalco).

[Conférence] 31e Journée d’études arméniennes
Organisée par l' Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales (Inalco), le Sedyl et la Société des études arméniennes.

📆 Vendredi 12 juin, de 9h à 18h
📍 65 rue des Grands Moulins, 75013 Paris — Grand Auditorium

Retrouvez le programme : https://www.inalco.fr/evenements/31e-journee-detudes-armeniennes

Entrée libre, en présentiel uniquement.

Call for Applications – IMAS Visiting Chair of Excellence Contribute towards academic and educational dynamism of the IMAS Master’s programme, whilst enhancing the international visibility of Armenian studies.

Appel à candidatures 2026 – Chaire d’excellence invitée Inalco-IMAS / Fondation Calouste Gulbenkian | Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales Appel à candidatures 2026 – Chaire d’excellence invitée Inalco-IMAS / Fondation Calouste Gulbenkian 1 avril 2026 Concours Enseignement à distance Fondation Fondation L’Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (Inalco), en partenariat avec la Fondation Calouste Gulbenkian et...

[Séminaire] Le prochain séminaire de la Société des Études Arméniennes se tiendra le jeudi 21 mai 2026, de 18h15 à 20h, à l'Inalco (salle 3.04).

La littérature d’expression turque des Arméniens d’Istanbul
par Armen DONIKYAN -TANIKYAN (Université Yeditepe)

En présentiel et par zoom.

Plus d'informations et inscription pour le zoom : https://www.inalco.fr/evenements/la-litterature-dexpression-turque-des-armeniens-distanbul

Félicitations à nos diplômés de Master et à la promotion 2025 du master IMAS (International Master in Armenian Studies) ! 🎓