17/07/2026
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