Named Entity Recognition in Arabic: A Review of Some Current Systems

Arabic Named Entity Recognition is still in its initial stages compared to the work on other languages such as English, which has benefited from the extensive research in this field. There are some aspects that slow down progress in Arabic Natural Language Processing compared to the accomplishments in other European languages. Semitic languages in general and Arabic scripted languages in particular, present a challenge to the automated approaches for NE recognition in general and proper names extraction in particular. That is why systems dealing with Semitic or Arabic NE have to adopt different techniques to overcome such challenges. In this paper we review and evaluate some Named Entity recognition systems developed for the Arabic language and discuss some of the issues related to these systems in particular and to the future of NE recognition in Arabic in general.