We know every tongue, tribe, and nation will be in heaven! Frequently this will be preceeded by ‘foreigners’ bringing the Good News. Most language software will be irrelevant for those foreigners, though, because it only targets big markets (French, Spanish, Chinese, etc.), ignoring 99% of the world’s 6000+ dialects. If you have computer programming talent (or know someone who does) or linguistic expertise, would you please join in a dialogue to explore the creation of a database approach language software that could be used for *any* dialect? Just click on “Comment” below to follow the discussion . . . or better yet, add to it.
hi. i know php/mysql and a few other things. what kind of help were you looking for?
It appears to me that most language software companies (Rosetta Stone, Eurotalk, etc.) are just using a database approach. They have created a structure and then just dump in the data for additional languages.
What I’m wondering about is some sort of a collaborative (open source?) project where software programming missions enthusiasts would create a very similar structure. Then missionaries, w/ the help of a native speaker, could create the database content for their target language.
Ideally there would be an online file-sharing depot so that people can upload/download and rank different modules (Example: maybe I made a language module about fruits in language X, you made one about car parts… this way we can share them).
What do you think?
KK
how many other languages do you know?
This is an excellent idea. I know Wycliffe has contracted a company to develope new software, but don’t know if they are moving in the same direction. Languages are complex and the way they are written and spoken can be so different, from writting left to right to many different accents, etc. From my experience with both, programming and languages, a key factor in doing this well the first time would be to have a highly qualified linguist be involved.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From my experience with both, programming and languages, a key factor in doing this well the first time would be to have a highly qualified linguist be involved.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I guess that rather than starting from scratch I was thinking we could lean heavily on existing software examples.
Based on other Open Source software I get the impression there must be a lot of leeway in borrowing ‘ideas’ in software development.
All of that to say I’d be content relying on those other companies’ linguists. Thoughts?
KK
SIL continues to work on producing software for linguistics work:
See the Fieldworks suite at:
http://www.sil.org/computing/catalog/show_software.asp?id=115
and a dictionary viewer/editor program called Lexique Pro at:
http://www.lexiquepro.com
The Lexique Pro user interface can be translated into other languages.
I have a couple of questions: 1) Who is actually proposing this project? 2) What experience and/or expertise does he/she have in languages and linguistics?
I ask this because producing anything that is even remotely useful for language learning is enormously difficult if it is anything more than for drilling vocabulary and practical expressions.
Minority languages, most of which have small populations (5700 with less than 100K and 3900 with under 10K speakers) tend to have syntactic structures vastly different from Indo-european languages and much of the vocabulary has areas of meaning that only partially overlaps with their nearest equivalents in European languages. Because language is an expression of culture, it is necessary to learn the language in the context of the culture in order to really communicate effectively.
The best computer software for learning minority languages is software designed to assist the learner collect the language and culture together and provide features to do various types of drilling (TPR, memorization of words and expressions) drawn from natural texts spoken by native speakers on culturally relevant subjects. There are a number of programs out there that have been designed for this:
SIL has FieldWorks and LinguaLinks and New Tribes Mission has CLAware (CLA = Culture & Language Acquisition).
These programs allow for the sharing of the language and culture information collected with other learners.
I would suggest that these existing programs be investigated before launching another project, and as has been mentioned, it should include people with a high level of expertise in linguistics and language learning.
Check out http://cs.sou.edu/~harveyd/acorns
The ACORNS project supports tribal efforts at language revitalization. The software is freely downloaded for non-commercial uses. We are applying for an NSF grant that will enable us the time to create software for making Web-based dictionaries. These dictionaries will contain lots of neat features, and provide games based on the data contained.
I have made a free program called His Hands Reader that enables learning to read first and second languages especially for non-English speakers. Although it does include English it is designed to teach bilingualism between any combination of two of the 6000+ languages. Volunteers are encouraged to add their own language to the integrated multi-lingual 1700 meaning lexicon. Once uploaded the lexicons are automatically distributed to all subscribers. The reading primers are easy Bible text. The His Hands Reader supports the unskilled but literate volunteer in making easy Bible text primers in their own native language. Once the lexicon is loaded the volunteer can produce a first draft of Genesis chapters 1-9 Easy Bible text in their own native tongue in a few minutes. All they need to do is adjust the grammar (word order) and spelling (of inflected words) to distribute the text as literacy primers. Of course they will want others more skilled in refining the accuracy of the translation to mature the text in later revisions. This follows the "literacy first" model to Bible translation in order to achieve more readable and accurate translations in fewer and faster revision cycles.
Here is the ad I just sent in to Brigada announcing the free His Hands Reader program.
++++++
How can a deaf person in a developing country ever read God's Word?– A survey by the World Federation of Deaf in 1988 showed that 80 percent of deaf live in developing countries but only 1 percent of the children were enrolled in primary education. Twelve years ago Bob began asking God, "How is it possible to bring literacy to the least of these using computer technology?" Today Bob is sharing a new free Windows program that can help the deaf to learn to read any language using any sign language. Language data can be easily loaded by untrained "native speakers". The Bible reading primers made with the His Hands Reader program can even be played back on local TV. Almost every word will have a meaning picture and hand sign to help the deaf and hearing to understand the vocabulary from the 1700 meaning lexicon. Please comment below that you want to volunteer to add your text or sign language then contact Bob via the web site. It takes only one week to add your language.
http://www.GodandDeaf.org/hhr
Take a look at a video screen capture of a His Hands Reader primer being read on GoogleVideo.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=305522946098254846&hl=en
And also on the Chinese site… http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/VujGey1mBTU
Hi, Don. I proposed the project. I’m a missionary in N. Africa where a dialect of Arabic is spoken. I learned Spanish some years ago when serving in South America.
I lead a missionary team here and have been astonished by the number of other missionaries (thankfully, not from our team for the most part) have come and gone here. It’s amazing how many people come, throw two intense years at learning language, then go home.
Because, like all N. African countries, there is a second language here (from colonialists) I bought some software for it. Realizing that the software was actually not 100% designed for that language, rather that it was just a ‘machine’ that any language database could be dropped into, it made me wish that someone would make the equivalent for anyone that had a good language tutor to benefit from.
I am not proposing that *any* software will ever be as good as time w/ people (for several reasons). I am pretty confident, though, that most languages are going to have a word for the color blue, the number 5, a nose, etc.
I believe that if we could all benefit from the repetition and efficiency that this software offers for *some* aspects of language learning that we’d free up an incredible amount of time and energy for missionaries.
Again, I think that linguists have already been heavily involved in creating software like Rosetta Stone. I would be completely comfortable w/ trusting their conclusions (because I know that every approach will have strengths and weaknesses).
I hadn’t previously heard about the software that’s mentioned in these posts. I’m eager to check it out.
THANK YOU to everyone for past and future thoughts on this topic!
KK,
Now that you describe your particular need it sounds like you are an English speaker learning another language. For that scenario http://www.byki.com/ would solve a big chuck of your need.
You can share the fruit of your labor of building the vocabulary flash cards on the share zone on their web site. You only have to pay a small fee for the flash card editor to make the audio flash cards. The sharing and end user client is free.
And maybe they already have your dialect?
I have found the integrated audio recording capability of byki to be really easy to use and good quality. The integrated practice features and pronunciation tool is good, too.
For non English speakers learning another language try His Hands Reader. http://www.GodandDeaf.org/hhr
Bob
Bob,
I tried BYKI a while back and have a friend who invested heavily in making cards. Though it’s functional for a number of purposes it’s pretty rigid and just has a fraction of the functionality that Rosetta Stone (or the like) has.
That is where the idea of sharing language libraries came from (for me), though.
Steve,
You still in this dialogue? How big is the work load to create something that is Rosetta Stone-ish from the programming side?
How long is a piece of string? (after only a brief look at their web site) to implement Rosetta Stone would take hundreds of hours.
Your idea of basing something on existing projects is good. Someone else mentioned the need for a trained linguist, which is vital. Languages are complex with bizarre rules and exceptions. The conceptual models a linguist brings in would save months of mistakes.
Perhaps your next step could be to develop a specification: a detailed list of all the functionality you need, in priority order. A gap analysis against other similar projects (mentioned by other posters) will help you decide whether you can use or slightly modify one of these.
See also
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source_software_development
Hope this helps.
Steve (and any other programming people),
Thank you for the insights!
At a personal level how interested/committed would you be to this project?
KK
By the way, one reader (himself a Wycliffe translator), wrote in recently to say:
The article posted on August 10, however, leaves an impression that you might want to correct. SIL (a Wycliffe family organization) develops and publishes for free software that directly targets the languages (not dialects) mentioned. Please see http://www.sil.org/computing/catalog/ for the software that is available. Of course, for the most part, you need to be a skilled linguist to use this software. It seems that the author of this piece has other software in mind while writing the article (Rosetta Stone comes to mind) that indeed misses the people that we are serving. He/She does mention that “most translation software will be irrelevant”, but fails to mention that there are organizations working on that very thing. Probably an oversight, or they just are unaware of SIL and our computing departments. BTW, computing in Bible Translation has increased the speed of translation from about 22 years for completion of a NT to around 14 years, generally speaking! I didn’t want to post a correcting comment, throwing water on a great idea. In fact, we are just beginning work on a crowd computing initiative that could include this very type of project.
(Doug)
Hi! I don’t know if anyone is reading this thread anymore, but in case anyone is…
I’ve been using this Rosetta Stone-ish program to learn a local language. It can be used to learn any language. You have to put in the sound files and the pix, but it’s not too complicated.
I can’t make the link come up all fancy, but the program is freeware and it’s called Vocabulary Manager.
http://www.sil.org/computing/catalog/show_software.asp?id=96
Hope this helps someone!