Gerard, you can find the message to which I was referring at the end
of the present message.
Please do not treat me as if I know nothing about the subject, because
I certainly do.
Many deaf people learn to speak and to read lips. I don't really think
whether or not deaf people learn a spoken language is an issue
regarding Wiktionary. But certainly, many deaf people DO learn spoken
languages, even if you think (as you appear to) that spoken and
written languages are completely distinct entities.
Besides, it's absurd to state that written languages are not related
to spoken languages. Written English is nothing more than a
transcription of spoken English (in a standard dialect).
As of yet there is no widely-used written language which does not
correspond directly or nearly directly to a spoken or signed language.
You say there are three different kinds of languages, spoken, written,
and signed. This, too, is absurd!
Written languages are always associated with a spoken language (or in
some cases, a signed language). Thus, when we say "Finnish", we're
referring to the language spoken by the majority of Finns, as well as
the language written by the majority of Finns, because in the minds of
all reasonable people they are a single entity.
Do you think that if Korean kids had to learn to write
Dutch-written-language in school rather than Korean-written-language,
it would be just as easy? Obviously, it would not. This is because
knowing spoken Korean makes it much easier to learn written Korean,
and knowing spoken Dutch makes it easier to learn written Dutch,
because there are many simple correspondences. Learning a different
written language, however, is just as difficult as learning a
different spoken language.
But again, this isn't the main point. Please read the e-mail below:
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Mark Williamson <node.ue(a)gmail.com>
Date: 24-Aug-2005 03:06
Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] Re: Spell checking in MediaWiki
To: Wikimedia developers <wikitech-l(a)wikimedia.org>
Hi,
That page states that the ways for writing signed languages are closer
to Chinese characters than Latin script.
This is completely incorrect.
Please see below for my suggestion on signed languages.
There are 4 main ways of writing signed languages:
1) With word-for-word glosses in a spoken language. For ASL or BSL
this is usually English; for InSL it may be Hindi or another Indian
language or English; for Chinese SL it will probably be Chinese. While
this is suitable in most cases for writing whole sentences and
recording syntax and grammar, it gives no specific information about
what a sign looks like and thus is completely unsuitable.
2) Sutton SignWriting. This writing system is copyrighted and use of
it is not free. However, it is currently the most widely used of any
of the 3 main sign-writing systems today, at least by deaf people
(researchers are more likely to use HamNoSys or Stokoe). It is more
like Korean letters: each part of any given symbol says something
specific about how to form the sign, but they are combined to form
what may appear to the uninitiated to be a logographic sign, when in
fact it is most certainly not. More information at
http://www.omniglot.com/writing/signwriting.htm
3) HamNoSys. A very complex system that can be best compared with a
"Narrow transcription" of a spoken language using the IPA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonetic_transcription#Narrow_and_broad_transc…
, it is used mostly by researchers. However, it's much easier to
represent on computers than Sutton SignWriting. More information at
http://www.sign-lang.uni-hamburg.de/Projects/HamNoSys.html
4) Stokoe. Stokoe is actually, in a sense, the basis of HamNoSys. It
is more equivalent to the Latin script than any of the other systems,
in fact it borrows many letters from it. Its use is restricted mostly
to researchers today. Some people accept the minor changes made by it
by a BSL researcher, however any more drastic changes are usually
considered to be separate systems.
Suggestion: Use
http://www.unm.edu/~grvsmth/signsynth/ -- data will be
stored as a computer representation of Stokoe, but can be played back.
Demo available at
http://www.panix.com/~grvsmth/signsynth/ ...
Although the native rendering for SignSynth is VRML (Virtual Reality
Markup Language), I imagine it would be quite easy to convert
automatically or even to make it render initially in a more
widely-used format, such as some sort of video or animation format.
This would limit the space that would be taken up by the storage of so
many videos -- there are hundreds of signed languages on the planet
today, and to store videos for each word in all of them (or even just
the major ones and the 1000 most frequent words) would take up a lot
of space.
While it is obviously not perfect (look at the forehead... oh my is
she ugly!), it's definitely good enough that someone could imitate it
and their imitation would be the proper sign very accurately, and it's
also good enough that anybody who can speak sign language (there are
better terms than "speak", but they seem awkward to me) should be able
to understand it well.
Presumably, the developer of the software could be solicited for
further cooperation.
Mark
On 24/08/05, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Lars Aronsson wrote:
Sabine Cretella wrote:
Well Lars, we are not so far away from making a
different point
in that. It is one of the usages we have in mind with Ultimate
Wiktionary. Since there we will have words in all languages and
have these words in a relational database it is easy to "extract
an actual spellchecker" every now and then.
I keep hearing these promises, but "seeing is believing"! Have
you started actual work on UW yet, or are you sitting idle while
waiting for Wikidata to be released? Will there be an English
free dictionary that can compete in size and quality with Aspell's
current dictionary by the end of 2005? Or by the end of 2006?
Hoi,
Actual work on UW itself is underway. Here you can find the data desisgn
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_Wiktionary_data_design This
design is very much open for comments and I am happy to say that many
comments that were given have led to changes. I name but a few changes
that came about this way; Can sign languages be included - now they can,
Can attestations be included - now they can.
As Ultimate Wiktionary is dependent on Wikidata, there is little option
for us but to wait untill it is ready. It is really important that
Wikidata is done well because it will not serve only Ultimate Wiktionary
but also Ultimate Wiktionary.
When both Aspell and Ultimate Wiktionary are considered Free, it should
be possible for us to work together. Once we find this cooperation
possible, we could host the data currently included in Aspell in UW. In
return we would provide a publicly accessible website where it is easy
to add new words thay will end up in Aspell. Even when we do not
cooperate, there will be languages that currently do not have a
spellchecker. These spellcheckers I am particularly exited about because
this is where we will be able to add value.
Without a massive infusion of data, it will be hard to predict when we
have as many words as Aspell does for languages where Aspell has a
dictionary.
Then again, if we create a wordcount on the Wikipedia content, run it
against a spellchecker, the resulting list should be spelled correctly
and could be included in UW. Particularly for our biggest wikipedias and
the amount of topics covered, it should be a list that might be close to
the size of what Aspell has. We will also have a long list of words
missing in Aspell. We will however not get a spellchecker for British or
American in this way.
Thanks,
GerardM.
Thanks,
GerardM
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