Cross-lingual ontology matching as a challenge for the Multilingual Semantic Web

Resumen

Recently, the Semantic Web has experienced significant advancements in standards and techniques, as
well as in the amount of semantic information available online. Nevertheless, mechanisms are still
needed to automatically reconcile information when it is expressed in different natural languages on the
Web of Data, in order to improve the access to semantic information across language barriers. In this
context several challenges arise [1], such as: (i) ontology translation/localization, (ii) cross-lingual
ontology mappings, (iii) representation of multilingual lexical information, and (iv) cross-lingual access
and querying of linked data.
In the following we will focus on the second challenge, which is the necessity of establishing,
representing and storing cross-lingual links among semantic information on the Web. In fact, in a
“truly” multilingual Semantic Web, semantic data with lexical representations in one natural language
would be mapped to equivalent or related information in other languages, thus making navigation across
multilingual information possible for software agents.