Miðeind ehf. has finalized an agreement with Forlagið ehf. to acquire Snara ehf., which operates the eponymous online library and owns the digital publishing rights to various well-known dictionaries and reference materials. With this acquisition, two key companies in the field of Icelandic language technology and digital language solutions are merging with the aim of strengthening the position of Icelandic in the digital world.

Miðeind, founded in 2015, is a leading software company in the field of language technology and artificial intelligence, with a focus on the Icelandic language. From the beginning, Miðeind's strategy and purpose have been to develop technological solutions that make Icelandic accessible and usable in a digital context. One of Miðeind's main services is Málstaður, an open web solution that combines the company's language technology solutions in a single user-friendly interface. Málstaður includes four key products: Málfríður, which assists with writing and language correction; Hreimur, which converts spoken language into text; Erlendur, a machine translation solution supporting multiple languages; and Svarkur, a question-answering and search solution. Miðeind also maintains a digital thesaurus on the website samheiti.is, which was created with the help of artificial intelligence.

Snara is a pioneer in the distribution of digital dictionaries for the Icelandic language environment. Through the company's web portal, users can access a wide range of dictionaries and language corpora in Icelandic and foreign languages. The crown jewels of Snara are undoubtedly the Icelandic Dictionary of the Cultural Fund and the English-Icelandic Dictionary with Encyclopedic Content. Additionally, Snara offers a concordance from the works of Halldór Laxness, an Icelandic-Italian and Icelandic-Spanish dictionary, and a selection of recipes, to name just a few.

"Miðeind's acquisition of Snara is a tremendous boost for Icelandic language technology," says Linda Heimisdóttir, CEO of Miðeind. "The merger allows us to interweave Snara's databases with Miðeind's technology to improve user experience and increase diversity. Miðeind has achieved good results in using artificial intelligence to enrich dictionary data and create new language corpora. Artificial intelligence is advancing rapidly at the moment, and quality data is absolutely crucial in securing the position of Icelandic in this powerful technology."

The acquisition is part of Miðeind's long-term strategy, which aims to strengthen Icelandic language technology and secure the future of the Icelandic language in the digital world. There will be no immediate changes to Snara's services, but in the coming months, work will be done to integrate systems, and the presentation of the online library will be updated accordingly, in line with the latest technology and user needs.