Text Information Retrieval in Tetun: A Preliminary Study

TL;DR

This paper explores the challenges of applying information retrieval techniques to Tetun, a low-resource language, and presents preliminary experimental results on ad-hoc retrieval in Tetun.

Contribution

It provides the first investigation into Tetun information retrieval and offers initial experimental insights into ad-hoc retrieval for this low-resource language.

Findings

Preliminary results on Tetun ad-hoc retrieval

Identifies challenges in low-resource language IR

Lays groundwork for future Tetun IR research

Abstract

Tetun is one of Timor-Leste's official languages alongside Portuguese. It is a low-resource language with over 932,400 speakers that started developing when Timor-Leste restored its independence in 2002. The media mainly uses Tetun, and more than ten national online newspapers actively broadcast news in Tetun every day. However, since information retrieval-based solutions for Tetun do not exist, finding Tetun information on the internet is challenging. This work aims to investigate and develop solutions that can enable the application of information retrieval techniques to develop search solutions for Tetun. We present a preliminary result of an experiment conducted on the task of ad-hoc retrieval in Tetun.