---
language:
- si
license: cc-by-4.0
task_categories:
- token-classification
tags:
- named-entity-recognition
- sinhala
- ner
- natural-language-processing
- bio-format
pretty_name: Sinhala NER 85k Dataset
dataset_info:
  features:
  - name: tokens
    sequence: string
  - name: ner_tags
    sequence:
      class_label:
        names:
          '0': O
          '1': B-PER
          '2': I-PER
          '3': B-LOC
          '4': I-LOC
          '5': B-ORG
          '6': I-ORG
          '7': B-Other
          '8': I-Other
size_categories:
- 10K<n<100K
---

# Sinhala Named Entity Recognition (NER) Dataset - 85,000 Annotations

## Dataset Description
This is a high-quality Named Entity Recognition (NER) dataset for the **Sinhala language**, consisting of approximately **85,000 annotations**. The dataset was manually curated and annotated by a team of three students to support NLP research for low-resource languages. 

The data is sourced from diverse domains, including social media comments, news articles, and public domain texts, capturing the nuances of both formal and informal Sinhala usage.

## Annotators & Contact
This dataset was manually annotated and curated by the following students. For inquiries regarding the dataset, please contact:

* **[D.D.K.I Udayanga]** - [udayangakasu696@gmail.com]
* **[S.A.S Kavindya]** - [shainikavindya2@gmail.com]
* **[K.M.P.S Gunasekara]** - [pasindusgkmp@gmail.com]

## Dataset Structure

### Format
The dataset follows the **BIO (Beginning, Inside, Outside)** format, commonly used for sequence labeling tasks. Each token is paired with a corresponding tag.

### Label Statistics
The distribution of the entities in this dataset is as follows:

| Label | Count | Description |
|---|---|---|
| **B-PER** | 6,386 | Beginning of a Person's name |
| **I-PER** | 1,744 | Inside of a Person's name |
| **B-LOC** | 4,074 | Beginning of a Location |
| **I-LOC** | 253 | Inside of a Location |
| **B-ORG** | 3,762 | Beginning of an Organization |
| **I-ORG** | 707 | Inside of an Organization |
| **B-Other** | 51,048 | Beginning of other entities |
| **I-Other** | 190 | Inside of other entities |
| **O** | 18,489 | Outside (Non-entity words) |

### Data Example
Each entry consists of a sentence split into tokens with their respective NER tags:

| Tag Number (ID) | Tag Label |
| :--- | :--- |
| **0** | **O** |
| **1** | **B-PER** |
| **2** | **I-PER** |
| **3** | **B-LOC** |
| **4** | **I-LOC** |
| **5** | **B-ORG** |
| **6** | **I-ORG** |
| **7** | **B-Other** |
| **8** | **I-Other** |

## Intended Use
- **Named Entity Recognition:** Training models like BERT, XLM-R, or LSTM-CRF for Sinhala NER.
- **Language Modeling:** Fine-tuning language models for Sinhala.
- **Academic Research:** Studying the linguistic patterns of entities in South Asian languages.

## Licensing Information
This dataset is released under the **Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)** license. Users are free to share and adapt the material as long as appropriate credit is given to the original creators.