ional Conferences on Computational Linguistics (COLINGs) are
organized every two years by the International Committee on Computational
Linguistics (ICCL).

"The International Committee on Computational Linguistics was set up by David
Hays in the mid-Sixties as a permanent body to run international computational
linguistics conferences in an original way, with no permanent secretariat,
subscriptions or funds. It was ahead of its time in that and other ways. COLING
has always been distinguished by pleasant venues and atmosphere, rather than by
the clinical efficiency of an airport conference hotel: COLINGs are simply nice
conferences to be at. [...] In recent years, the ACL [Association for
Computational Linguistics] has given great assistance and cooperation in keeping
COLING proceedings available and distributed."

5.3. Language Engineering

Launched in January 1999 by the European Commission, the website HLTCentral
(HLT: Human Language Technologies) gives a short definition of language
engineering:

"Through language engineering we can find ways of living comfortably with
technology. Our knowledge of language can be used to develop systems that
recognise speech and writing, understand text well enough to select information,
translate between different languages, and generate speech as well as the
printed world.

By applying such technologies we have the ability to extend the current limits
of our use of language. Language enabled products will become an essential and
integral part of everyday life."

A full presentation of language engineering can be found in Language
Engineering: Harnessing the Power of Language.

From 1992 to 1998, the Language Engineering Sector was part of the Telematics
Applications Programme of the European Commission. Its aim was to facilitate the
use of telematics applications and to increase the possibilities for
communication in and between European languages. RTD (research and technological
development) work focused on pilot projects that integrated language
technologies into information and communications applications and services. A
key objective was to improve their ease of use and functionality and broaden
their scope across different languages.

From January 1999, the Language Engineering Sector has been rebranded as Human
Language Technologies (HLT), a sector of the IST Programme (IST: Information
Society Technologies) of the European Commission for 1999-2002. HLTCentral has