[Foundation-l] Wiki translations of Greek and Roman texts

Fri Oct 15 10:04:29 UTC 2004

Delirium wrote:

> Viktor Horvath wrote:
>
>> Could it be possible to set up a Wiki containing some
>> Latin/Greek/Arabian/whatever philosophy (or other content) whose 
>> copyright
>> has expired for a long time - be it by typing in old editions or by 
>> taking
>> over some Gutenberg content - and displaying it one paragraph per page,
>> giving the viewer the possibility to translate it into his native 
>> language? 
>
I would hope that one could have pages that are longer than one 
paragraph.  My own preference would be to have the ability to have two 
or more versions that could be scrolled in synchrony beside each other.

>> I guess some specific features would be helpful, such as allowing two
>> translations in the same language to coexist (call them "English 
>> version,
>> showing John's translations where possible" and the same thing for 
>> Jim), as
>> there will never be "the one correct version". In addition, it would 
>> be nice
>> to create a bilingual PDF for printing. 
>
> This sounds great to me.  Would this be acceptable at wikisource 
> without starting a fully new project?  I know the original source 
> texts would be, but are original translations okay, or is that project 
> strictly for verbatim source texts? 

It fits in perfectly with my vision of Wikisource.  In theory this is 
one way in which Wikisource could be superior to other e-text 
suppliers.  There is bound to be some blurring of the line between 
Wikisource and Wikibooks.

> A related project that's been mentioned on this list is support for 
> annotations (a footnote-like system), which I think any translation 
> project would need---there are often nuances and controversies in 
> translation that can't be fully resolved in the text, but should be 
> noted for those who are interested (and there are likely to be so many 
> that they need to be noted as attachments to the text like footnotes, 
> not scattered on the talk page).

Wikimedia does not do a good job with footnotes.  Having to srcoll way 
down to the bottom of the page to see a footnote can be very 
inconvenient with a long text.  It's often a good thing to be able to 
see both the referring text and the footnote at the same time.  Again, 
this is something where having synchronized boxes would be very helpful.

Ec