Today for the first time I read a request on OpenSource terminology
(Firebird and Opera) on the Italian translator's list. Really it has
been quite a long time now that I was considering to create these
glossaries within wiktionary since I believe they will become
fundamental during the following years. More and more people work with
OpenSource software and so it is only a question of time when people
will start to look for this terminology.
Do we have people within our group who already have such glossaries or
have contacts to the right people?
I believe it is time to talk about such things - I am posting this to
the wikipedia-l as well, as it is likely that contributors of wikipedia
have the right contacts. Please from now on use the wiktionary-l for
this disucssion to avoid cross postings or write me by private mail.
Thank you!!
Ciao, Sabine
*****
Sabine Cretella
Translations IT-DE, EN-DE
s.cretella(a)wordsandmore.it
skype: sabinecretella
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Yahoo! Mail: gratis 1GB per i messaggi e allegati da 10MB
http://mail.yahoo.it
Cross-posted to wiktionary and wikipedia; because I haven't seen a
good example lately of how a merging might work; and because I've
recently been through the cycle of slightly argumentative discussion
that Ec seems to be falling into. Please reply to only one list, and
feel free to add to or modify my example to illustrate your own ideas
of what such a project might look like. SJ
On 6/18/05, Sabine Cretella <sabine_cretella(a)yahoo.it> wrote:
>
> > The differences between Gerard and me are based in a fundamental
> > philosophical differences about the nature of Wiktionaries in
> > particular and dictionaries in general. His position is a logical
> > consequence from the premise that Wiktionary is just a translation
> > dictionary; I disagree with his premise by considering Wiktionary to
> > be much more than that.
It might be more constructive to think of this position (what I
believe to be Gerard's) as a logical consequence from the premise that
single-language Wiktionaries can be efficiently combined by taking
advantage of translation-dictionary content (specifically their
linkages between words)..
> > Each Wiktionary may be tasked with explaining all words from all
> > languages, but it does so for the benefit of speakers of its own
> > language. Gerard's Ultimate Wiktionary would work well if
> > translatiions were simply questions of one on one relationships. As
> > one example, the word "minister" exists in both Dutch, and you are
> > probably safe to use the same word when going from Dutch to English.
> > It doesn't work in the other direction. You can't translate the
> > English "minister" to its Dutch equivalent when "predikant" is
> > intended. Add in a third language and it can get very complicated.
Great, an example! Just what we need. Consider the following
English-language content:
________________________________________________________________
=minister=
== [English] ==
minister ([n.]) 1. [A person trained to perform religious ceremonies
at a Protestant church.]
"The minister said a prayer on behalf of the entire congregation."
|| [Dutch]: predikant; ... ||
minister ([n.]) 2. [A person commissioned by the government for public service.]
"He was newly appointed to be Minister of the Interior."
** || [Danish]: gesandt; [Dutch]: minister [m,f]; [French]:
ministre [m,f];
[German]: Minister [m], Ministerin [f]; [Italian]: ministro;
[Indonesian]: menteri;
[Interlingua]: ministro; [Japanese]: 大臣 (だいじん, daijin);
[Polish]: minister;
[Spanish]: ministro [m] ||
minister ([n.]) 3. [A person who serves others.]
minister ([vi.]) 1. [To tend to the needs of others]
minister ([vt.]) 1. [To dispense, to administer]
== [Dutch] ==
minister ([n.]) 1. [A person commissioned by the government for public service.]
"Zware voet jaagt minister Anciaux uit de bocht."
** || [Danish]: gesandt; [English]: minister; [French]: ministre [m,f];
[German]: Minister [m], Ministerin [f]; [Italian]: ministro;
[Indonesian]: menteri;
[Interlingua]: ministro; [Japanese]: 大臣 (だいじん, daijin);
[Polish]: minister;
[Spanish]: ministro [m] ||
________________________________________________________________
In the above examplt:
a) choosing your 'interface' language may change all text in [brackets],
b) content between || double bars || is stored in the database, so
that the two lists of translations for "minister (English, n., 2)"
"minister (Dutch, n., 1)" are actually referencing the same list of
database translations [marked above by a double asterisk **]
c) that bugbear of having multiple definitions for the same word in
some languages, but not in others, is finessed somewhat by relegating
translations to the defintion level, not the word level. [1]
> > The Wiktionaries in individual languages are in a better position to explain
> > this kind of problem in the target language for the translation.
As far as I can tell, the current independence of "[content in]
Wiktionaries in individual languages" would remain, in the most
detailed proposed concatenation of many Wiktionaries into one. Things
that would change:
* All wiktionaries would share a single list of definition-linkages
(definition 3 of word A is the same as definition 1 of word B); many
of these linkages would be from one language to another, but others
would be between synonyms in a single language.
* All synonymous definitions would share a single list of
translations, so that this list need not be pasted 100 times (and
updated 100 times for each update).
Sabine writes:
> All this was explained more than once (in the discussionlists and on
> meta) and obviously you did not read it, but you only read and write
> what you like.
For reference, I have tried to follow this matter carefully. I have
discussed metadata issues with linguists who are designing other
Wiktionary extensions. I have asked similar questions myself, of
Gerard on many occasions, and in conversations with both of you. :-)
And STILL the most complete published plans for, or descriptions of,
an "Ultimate Wiktionary" -- or a merging of many wiktionary projects
into a single one under any other name -- are not clear. Please do
not blame Ec for not seeing things exactly as you do.
> Adding a third language is not complicated, as the relation and the
Adding a third, and then a tenth, language IS complicated. It is
doable, but complicated, and necessarily slightly imperfect [1].
However, following the Wikimedia principle of doing useful things
quickly and not worrying about theoretical perfection, this will be a
useful project long before its nuances are completely satisfactory to
all.
> based on such an idea. International organisations, like Lisa (and they
> are THE language specialists for localisation) and Kennisnet (they are
> education specialist and work in many languages) are interested in it
> and believe it its value otherwise why would they have paid for the
Of course it has value to try to make such a project work. This does
not mean it is not difficult; it is! These international
organizations know how difficult it is; I imagine they are curious to
see how we will proceed. Let us see if our efforts make something
useful, despite the difficulty involved. I am confident that they
will... whatever our project is called.
+SJ+
[1] There is a difficult question, which we are ignoring for now :
just how precisely do all the translations of "minster (English, n.,
2)" have synonymous definitions? When are two different words ever
truly synonymous? But that is a discussion for another month.
Dear All,
We would like to open a Wiktionary for the Amis language. Amis is an
Austronesian language used by the Amis -- one of the Austronesian
people in Taiwan. The Amis account for about one third of Taiwan's
indigenous population (i.e. 130 thousand), however, many of the younger
generation do not speak the language and till now there is still no
exact ststistic report of the number of real speakers.
There are two prevailing writing systems of this language: the
Presbyterian Church system and the International Phonetic Symbol
system, the later is used only within the academic circle. We would
like to edit a Wiktionary which basically employs the Presbyterian
Church system but also notes the IPS so that readers can also know the
exact pronounciations.
At this moment there are at least three people who are willing to
commit to this project. They are Nakao Eki, Afah Lisin, and Tai-ni
Tsou. The former two are native speakers and the later two as
ethnographers are also familiar with the academic Amis writing system.
Pektiong Tan (zh-min-nan:pektiong) will help those people to get
familiar with the wikipedia system.
We would prefer to set the default interface language to be Mandarin
with traditional character used in Taiwan (zh-tw) since most of the
potential user of this wiktionary can read Mandarin with traditional
character.
Proposed domain name:
http://amis.wiktionary.org/
Language tag for Amis:
ISO 639-2: N.A.
ISO 639-3 (Draft): Ami
SIL: ALV
RFC-3066: i-ami
Sincerely,
Nakao Eki,
Afah Lisin,
Tai-ni Tsou,
Pektiong Tan
Some info about Taiwanese aborigine:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwanese_aborigine
Stefan Jensen wrote:
>Good morning Sabine and everybody,
>Great to see more people joining into the communication. I am not a frequent user of the Wicki discussion tools which Gerhard proposes to use for this but I'll try to move things over to there. (And I see Bernard is already using it).
>
Dear Stefan,
really nice to "cybermeet" ;o) you and the others in this Wiki/EEA ring...
The merit or the blame - you'll see later... - is to be put on that
German Vesuvio ;o) who's definitely SabiNet...
We recently got in touch in a list of discussion - LANGIT - I quitted
very fast, for some reasons, after launching a project, RL - RAPTVS
LINGVÆ, which she was the only replier to.
As soon as Sabine has got some time to explain to me where and how to
effectively start to work in/for Wiki world with the support of EEA
(even if at present I'm already doing/studying really several things,
and would need paid work, I'll be glad to play actually my part, also
owing to its being a good reference on the whole and it will let me learn.
My mother tongue is Italian, which I studied also at the university;
moreover I worked as a professional proofreader and editor for ten years
and am an author.
As for Chinese at least - I can't assure you nothing - but I'm in high
touch with some Chinese linguists (two women) who know English and are
interested in Italian too. They have a sort of translation agency on the
net and I created and moderate an Itlaian subforum on their Chinese
website.
Enough & maybe too much?, for the time being...
ALBatro.
Carme diem,
ALBatro.
__________________________________________________________
Alberto L. Beretta, FIRCA
(Freelance Italian Relations & Communications Assistant).
Italian proofreading - editing - composition - voiceovers - translations
escorting - research - other.
(www.carmediem.it, under refurbishment until 27 Aug.) - info(a)carmediem.it.
Email a.l.beretta(a)virgilio.it, fax on request,
(+39) 02 57501442, home office/study (+39) 338 3524079 (mobile),
Via Pavese 137, 20089 Rozzano (Milan), Italy (EU).
Hi,
I'm not able to create a new account in the Italian page.
Though I used the same "user name" into your English page
and for registering in Wikipedia, then on the Italian page I always
get an "error". Even if I use different "user name" the site doesn't
accept it !
Since I'm an Italian people I only should work on the Italian page,
so please help me replying to:
_feeling(a)tin.it
A mail was sent to this list from the Wikimania OTRS account (I don't
know who from). This bounced back to me, since I get notified about
mails in the Wikimania queue, with the standard "your mail is being
held until the list moderator can review it for approval", so I went
to the Wiktionary queue to see whether it was still waiting, only to
find that there are so many pending mails there that it froze my
browser.
Fire is the only registered list admin for wiktionary-l, and hasn't
been active for some time, so we urgently need a new volunteer for
this role.
Is anyone willing to administer this list? It would basically involve
deleting lots of spam and letting through the occasional mail from
someone who was not a subscriber to the list (like the Wikimania one).
There are more details on this at
<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_list_administration>.
Angela.
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Gerard Meijssen wrote:
>
>> As to our community structure, it will evolve. Ultimate Wiktionary is
>> part of that evolution. You can not seriously expect that in a
>> project that doubles in size every four to six months our community
>> will not be affected. UW will not be as I expect, I see
>> opportunities and I try to realise them. Many of the expectations
>> are dependant on what the UW community will be. It will not be like
>> the Wikipedia communities, it will not be like the Wiktionary
>> communities, it will be distinctly different but it will be Open and
>> Free.
>
>
> In one of your other posts you stated that some decisions about your
> UW had already been taken. If a UW community is to "evolve" that will
> begin when the software is usable by all who might be a part of that
> community. At that time _all_ of your pre-release decisions will be
> open to discussion and evolution. Anything else would be a work of
> [[intelligent design]].
>
> Ec
>
Is it not obvious that many decisions have been taken? Ultimate
Wiktionary will be based on a database that has its functionality in a
wiki, it will contain all words in all languages. It will have a user
interface specifically for the Ultimate Wiktionary. These things have
been decided. If at some stage people find that another scheme is
better, there is no stopping them improving on what is on offer. If you
think that the discussion starts when there is something is usable, you
do not understand what software development is about. This is the time
that people have to discuss what UW will be. If you do not use arguments
now, if you do not think now, at that stage you will have lost your
opportunity to be part of the decisions that will be taken before that time.
Using words like intelligent design is funny, because it is an
intelligent design that we are looking for. It will be evolution that
will show us what will happen with the UW functionality and how the
Wiktionary [[phenomenon]] will evolve.
Thanks,
GerardM
Hoi,
I may get us the cooperation with the NTG the Dutch TeX usergroup. They
have a resource of 222.872 correctly spelled Dutch words. This data is
nominally licensed under the LGPL, just to ensure that it stays Free.
They are not particular about the license; anyone is free to use it. We
can host these words in the Ultimate Wiktionary. This means however that
the information has to stay FREE as in everyone is to be able to use the
data. It would serve us well in many ways; it would be not only an
important addition to the UW it would also enlarge the UW community in
an important way.
Currently their data is used by the Open Office organisation among many.
many others. The hosting of this type of content is one important way of
making the UW relevant. It is completely in line with the objectives of
the Wikimedia Foundation.
I do ask the board: When the Ultimate Wiktionary is life, do we allow
all and any use of our data and do we allow at least other Open or Free
organisations to use the content of the UW in their applications without
restrictions ?
Thanks,
GerardM
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Wouter Steenbeek wrote:
>
>>> Also, if you do it for Wiktionary, it would only be logical to merge
>>> all
>>> wikipedias into the Ultimate Wikipedia, Ultimate Wikiquote, Ultimate
>>> Wikibooks, etc. But that's simply for consistency's sake.
>>>
>>> James
>>
>>
>> Logical, but ever so practical? A dictionary is per se about
>> differences between two different languages (OK, except for
>> describing unilingual dictionaries, but we're talking about
>> translation dictionaries now, aren't we?). An encyclopedia is not. A
>> Wikitionary consulter usually looks for a translation, and in
>> Wiktionary several languages are merged already. Wikipedia always
>> keeps one language.
>
>
> The difference between two languages is only a secondary purpose for
> each Wiktionary. The Wiktionary for a particular language primarily
> describes the different ways in which the word in question is used
> within the language. You may very well usually look to Wiktionary for
> translations, but others can look for different things.
>
> Ec
Hoi,
What someone looks for in a Wiktionary is up to that someone. For
someone interested in translations, etymology is of little intrest. For
someone interested in spelling, a definition is of little interest. The
reduction of the components of a Wiktionary is absurd. It is equally
absurd to state that one function is more important than the next.
Relevant is the realisation that the current Wiktionaries are as closed
as any proprietary content. This means that the only medium in which
Wiktionary is relevant is within an Internet-browser. To improve this
will make us closer to realising the objectives of the Wikimedia
Foundation. This is why we should publish in XML specific to dictionary
content or why we should publish in .dict format or RFC 2229. This will
not happen with content in the current format and as such it is a dead end.
Thanks,
GerardM
Hoi,
As a result of our exploring opportunities for Ultimate Wiktionary, I
was pointed to LISA the Localisation Industry Standards Association. I
downloaded some information and was asked afterwards for some
information. This in turn led to the question if I was willing to write
an article about Wikimedia and localisation. So I did. It can be found
here: http://www.lisa.org/globalizationinsider/
Thanks,
GerardM