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Lost in translation - PBA Pro Bono AustraliaMonday, August 22, 2022
Sunday, August 21, 2022
Alaska Native linguists create a digital Inupiaq dictionary, combining technology, accessibility and language preservation - Anchorage Daily News - Dictionary
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UTQIAĠVIK — Edna Ahgeak Paniattaaq MacLean smiled when her granddaughter Sirroun carried a thick tome with two hands and put it carefully on the table before her.
“I had some young people or teenagers tell me, ‘We’re trying to learn Iñupiaq but it’s so heavy!’” linguist and educator MacLean laughed, looking at the Iñupiaq dictionary she wrote.
In June, MacLean and two Yup’ik web developers, Christopher Egalaaq Liu and Lonny Alaskuk Strunk, completed an online Iñupiaq dictionary and word-building app, available at inupiaqonline.com. The project is based on MacLean’s Iñupiaq dictionary and aims to make learning the language in school and at home faster, easier and more accessible, even in rural areas.
“It’ll work,” MacLean said. “People are excited about it.”
Her life’s work has been to study, translate and preserve Iñupiaq — a language with an extensive oral tradition but limited written practice. The linguist’s efforts come at a time when only about 5% of Iñupiaq speakers are fluent, and the need for language-learning tools, as well as comprehensive educational programs, is growing.
The Iñupiaq Online website — launched by the Arctic Slope Community Foundation — is the first of its kind for the North Slope dialect of Iñupiaq and features a dictionary, a word-building function and an audio library to hear the way words are pronounced.
“It was designed for everyone,” Liu said. “We have it so that people can just look up words quickly. … We made it so that they can look up the underlying grammatical information if they want to.”
So far, about 1,200 unique viewers have visited the website, Liu said. Visitors can look up how to translate a word, see the plural form of the word, change the tense of a verb or add an adjective to a noun.
“The computer has been taught to create new words for the user based on the morphological rules,” MacLean said.
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This is how the word-building tool works: A learner might want to say, “I want to eat,” and type the word “eat” into the dictionary. The verb “to eat” has niġi as the stem, which is the part that helps drive the meaning of the phrase. To build out the full phrase, additional words are translated into different phrase components — postbases, endings and suffixes — that are then attached to the stem.
Using the website, a learner can pick a postbase — in this case, “I want to” — then choose the correct case for “I” and see the result as “niġisuktuŋa,” or “I want to eat.”
In the same way, by looking up the word “truck,” learners can end up with the sentence, “It is a big truck,” or “qamutiqpauruq,” by adding other elements to the original noun.
“This is just the first stage,” MacLean said. “There are over 400 suffixes or postbases, and we’ve worked only on 10.”
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Starting as soon as September, linguists plan to start improving the algorithms for the website to include more complex elements — for example, connective verb phrases for complex sentences — as well as conversational phrases.
“We are planning to make updates to the website and include more sentence types,” Liu said, “and also just like, bringing in maybe more dialogue, or conversational-centered speech. ... Over the next year, you can expect to see updates to the website.”
For now, learners can use the current version of the website and enjoy featured artwork created by the late Iñupiaq sculptor, silversmith and woodcarver, Ronald Senungetuk.
Iñupiaq Online is not the first language project that linguists Liu and Strunk have worked on together. A few years ago, they built a similar website for the Yugtun language and presented it at the 2018 AFN Convention. The website received overwhelmingly positive feedback, especially on the translation function of the website, Liu said.
The decision to build an online tool for Iñupiaq followed naturally: Both the Yugtun and Iñupiaq languages do not have many irregularities, and they follow a defined structure, making word- and sentence-building more predictable, Strunk said.
“Learning about the mathematical consistency of the language — all these rules can be formed to create complete words — was very interesting to me,” he said. “I could see the there would be applications for … more exciting language tools.”
The project was originally funded through an $82,609 grant from the federal Administration for Children and Families last year and will soon receive additional funding through the Bureau of Indian Affairs, said Ryan Cope, director of grant programs with the Arctic Slope Community Foundation.
To create Inupiaq Online, MacLean, Liu and Strunk met weekly via Zoom. MacLean would look at the website design and give developers feedback. Learning from MacLean’s insights was a highlight of the project for Liu.
“She wrote the grammar books. She compiled the dictionary. She’s Iñupiaq herself and the speaker of the language,” he said. “It is incredible because a lot of Native resources, language resources, are often not written by their own people.”
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In her Utqiaġvik house a few steps from the famous whale bone arch, MacLean was cutting muktuk on a foggy afternoon in late June. The 77-year-old linguist lives in Anchorage but regularly visits her home village. This time she came for Nalukataq, to celebrate the whale her brother landed.
Utqiaġvik is where MacLean’s passion for language took shape.
MacLean grew up at a time when parents were asked to speak English to their children, but her father Joseph Ahgeak refused to follow the rule. In third grade, a particularly strict teacher caught MacLean speaking Iñupiaq and punished her.
“I was caught once so she pulled my ear,” MacLean said, “and I screamed the heck out of pain.”
The young MacLean came home for lunch that day, wearing her hood up. Her mother Maria Ahgeak made her take off her parka before eating, and learned what happened after she saw her daughter’s bright red ears.
“She got totally mad,” MacLean said. “She put on one of my brothers’ parkas ... and stormed across the lagoon. It was frozen so she stormed across the lagoon and ran into my teacher’s classroom and grabbed her by the arm. ‘I am taking you to the principal’s and there, I’m going to pull your ear!’ ”
MacLean’s relationship with her teacher improved after that, and MacLean felt even more passionate about speaking her native language no matter what.
“I was one of the people that was punished for speaking Iñupiaq, and I got mad, and my mother got mad,” she said. “So we just kind of said, ‘OK, we’re going to do it anyway.’ So I’ve kept up that interest.”
Fluent from the time she was a child, MacLean didn’t become literate in Iñupiaq until she was in her 20s and worked with her mentor, Michael E. Krauss, a linguist and founder of the Alaska Native Language Center. Then MacLean taught Iñupiaq at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and immersed herself in the study of the language.
She wrote two Iñupiaq grammar books and published her latest dictionary in 2014, which took years of work. First, MacLean wrote down every word she knew. When she would run across a word she didn’t know, she would call her parents and ask them to explain it to her. And if her parents didn’t know that word either, she asked elders, hunters and other longtime Iñupiaq speakers.
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While tools like dictionaries and apps can make learning easier, MacLean said that one of the most effective ways to preserve Iñupiaq in the community is to create immersion programs that allow students to study the language on a deeper level and for longer periods of time.
“That’s the next step that we need to do,” she said. “In the schools, they have Iñupiaq language programs, but it’s not producing speakers. They are teaching it in segments, and they don’t have a true immersion environment for the children, especially the preschoolers, to learn it quickly. … The immersion method seems to be the only way that works.”
Linguists are continuing to work on Iñupiaq Online to make it as useful as possible, Liu said, while keeping in mind that a website can’t be a full educational resource for the language.
“You can’t really learn everything through an app or through a website,” Liu said. “You have to also practice and engage with people.”
Learn from words of a dictionary - The Andalusia Star-News - Andalusia Star-News - Dictionary
Learn from words of a dictionary
Published 7:30 am Saturday, August 20, 2022
Would you be offended if somebody called you a sexagenarian? Whoa there, no insult offended. At first glance, you might feel like it is an X-rated word. It isn’t. Neither are the words septuagenarian, octogenarian and nonagenarian. Actually they are age-rated. Maybe you knew that sexagenarian means somebody between 60 and 69 years old. Septuagenarian means someone who is between 70 and 79, and octogenarian means someone who is between 80 and 89 years old. Nonagenarian describes someone who is between 90 and 99 years old.
Some years ago, I blew a gift certificate from my son on the purchase of the Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. Along with that bound book, I also received a dictionary and thesaurus for my computer. I ran upon the above definitions when I paused on the word age and found myself headed in various directions. I discovered that in the United Kingdom the words grey pound mean the amount of money old people as a group has to spend. If you are referred to as an OAP it means you receive in England an old age pension from the state. If you are considered old there, somebody might say you are wrinkly, a crock (which could also mean an old car), or long in the tooth. We have all heard the expression “old as the hills” in referring to the elderly, but I was pleased to find that the word ancient cannot be suitably used in referring to an old person because it means hundreds or thousand years old.
I learned that if people in England want advice, they write to an “agony aunt” in a newspaper or magazine who pens an agony column, Come to think of it, if you follow any of the advice columns in our own country, you might agree that a lot of times that title can fit them as well.
Once you complete your dinner, you might be invited to sit down for afters, which simply means sweet food after a meal or what we call dessert.
Years ago in conversation with a lovely English lady who was married to a distant cousin of mine, she told me that the English refer to diapers as nappies. A picture in the dictionary I referred to showed me that the fender of a car is called a wing.
Besides all those wonderful definitions, there are study pages in the dictionary for those who want to brush up on grammar and punctuation. It tackles such as when to use who, which and that and the difference between effect and affect.
I have not finished A in the dictionary yet, so I have a long way to go in exploring some fascinating words, expressions and facts. Since I have pushed it aside for some other interest, it is time to push them aside and return to my dictionary lessons.
Saturday, August 20, 2022
Walter Byongsok Chon (Theatre) Receives Grant to Translate Korean Plays - Ithaca College - Translation
Walter Byongsok Chon, Associate Professor of Dramaturgy and Theatre Studies (SMTD), is awarded the 2022 Grant for the Translation of Korean Literary Works from the Daesan Foundation.
With this grant, he will translate into English four plays by South Korean playwright Myung-Wha Kim. The plays include The Wind’s Desire, The Birds Don’t Cross the Crosswalk, Oedipus: The Fate of the Story, and The Sound of the Moon. He will complete the translation with dramaturg Anne Hamilton, who will serve as a translation consultant.
https://ift.tt/t9qwl1k
Bio of the Playwright:
Myung-Wha Kim (Playwright) is a playwright and director. She made her debut as a playwright with Birds Do Not Cross the Crosswalk, which won the Samsung Literary Award for Best Play in 1997. Her plays include First Birthday, The Wind’s Desire, Redolence, and The End of the Royal Palace Dining Hall, among others. She won numerous awards including the Cha Beom-Seok Theater Award, Daesan Literary Award, Dong-A Theater Award, the Grand Prize in the Asahi Shimbun Theatrical Arts Award, and Yeo Seok-Gi Theater Critic Award. She founded Nanhee Theatre Company in 2018, which became The Nanhee in 2020, and took up directing. The Nanhee’s productions include Mimaji!, Dionysus Under the Magnolia, and Cold Noodles.
Friday, August 19, 2022
Dictionaries Rejected From School District Following DeSantis Bill - Newsweek - Dictionary
A school district in Florida could not accept a donation of dictionaries amid a new state law aimed at combating "wokeness" in classrooms.
The Venice Suncoast Rotary Club was prepared to give its annual donation of dictionaries to the Sarasota County Schools ahead of the new school year. But the district stopped all donations and purchases of books for school libraries until at least next year.
This came after HB 1467 took effect in July. The law requires school districts to have all reading and instructional materials reviewed by a district employee with a "valid educational media specialist certificate."
Sarasota County Schools does not currently have certified media specialists working in its schools and, therefore, has put a temporary freeze on book purchases and donations until January 2023, the district said.
This allows time for hiring and working through existing materials. It also allows time for the Florida Department of Education to provide rules and the district's curriculum team to provide interpretation and additional guidance on the legislation, the district told Newsweek.
Once this happens, the district said it will reach out to its education and community partners with updates.
"We value their support and don't wish to jeopardize the wonderful relationships we have in place," the district told Newsweek.
The Venice Suncoast Rotary Club told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune that they have donated about 300 dictionaries a year. After donating a total of 4,000 dictionaries to date, this is the first time they were denied.
The Rotary Club partners with the Dictionary Project to send dictionaries to schools. Mary French of the the Dictionary Project told Newsweek that she sent the dictionaries to the schools at the request of the Rotary Club. She was told by the Rotary Club that there was nothing apparently wrong with the dictionaries, but the school district just needed time to conduct its review of all reading materials, in accordance with the new law.
The district confirmed two of its schools were recently approached by a local organization looking to donate dictionaries, but neither school was able to accept the donations due to the freeze.
These reviews from schools come as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis continues his efforts to keep "wokeness" out of schools and allow parents to have more of a say in their children's education.
HB 1467 also sets term limits for school board members and requires districts to make materials public. The Department of Education is required to publish a list of materials that were removed by school boards.
According to guidance the district sent to its schools, all books and materials must be age and grade-level appropriate. The required reading, outside textbooks, must support lesson objectives and be aligned with state standards. The reading must also be included on the course syllabus given to parents, and parents must be allowed to request an alternative text for any reason.
The bill I signed today provides protections for parents by ensuring curriculum transparency in schools.
In Florida, we are empowering parents. pic.twitter.com/nj4GSxZWEq
— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) March 25, 2022
DeSantis said the new law "ensures curriculum transparency" in schools so parents can be involved in education.
"In Florida, our parents have every right to be involved in their child's education," DeSantis said in a statement following the signing of HB 1467 in March. "We are not going to let politicians deny parents the right to know what is being taught in our schools."
Earlier this year, the governor passed the Parental Rights in Education Act that prohibits schools from discussing sexual orientation or gender identify with students from kindergarten to third grade.
Today, I signed HB 1557, the Parental Rights in Education Act, into law.
It ensures parents can send their kids to kindergarten without gender ideology being injected into instruction and they will be notified and have the right to decline healthcare services offered at schools. pic.twitter.com/OLnW2GLrJl
— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) March 28, 2022
A judge recently partially blocked the Individual Freedom Act (IFA), also know as the "Stop WOKE Act," that would expand anti-discrimination laws to prevent schools and companies from engaging in training that would place blame on students or employees based on their race, sex or national origin.
Newsweek has asked DeSantis' office and the Rotary Club for comment.
Dictionaries Rejected From School District Following DeSantis Bill - Newsweek - Dictionary
A school district in Florida could not accept a donation of dictionaries amid a new state law aimed at combating "wokeness" in classrooms.
The Venice Suncoast Rotary Club was prepared to give its annual donation of dictionaries to the Sarasota County Schools ahead of the new school year. But the district stopped all donations and purchases of books for school libraries until at least next year.
This came after HB 1467 took effect in July. The law requires school districts to have all reading and instructional materials reviewed by a district employee with a "valid educational media specialist certificate."
Sarasota County Schools does not currently have certified media specialists working in its schools and, therefore, has put a temporary freeze on book purchases and donations until January 2023, the district said.
This allows time for hiring and working through existing materials. It also allows time for the Florida Department of Education to provide rules and the district's curriculum team to provide interpretation and additional guidance on the legislation, the district told Newsweek.
Once this happens, the district said it will reach out to its education and community partners with updates.
"We value their support and don't wish to jeopardize the wonderful relationships we have in place," the district told Newsweek.
The Venice Suncoast Rotary Club told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune that they have donated about 300 dictionaries a year. After donating a total of 4,000 dictionaries to date, this is the first time they were denied.
The Rotary Club partners with the Dictionary Project to send dictionaries to schools. Mary French of the the Dictionary Project told Newsweek that she sent the dictionaries to the schools at the request of the Rotary Club. She was told by the Rotary Club that there was nothing apparently wrong with the dictionaries, but the school district just needed time to conduct its review of all reading materials, in accordance with the new law.
The district confirmed two of its schools were recently approached by a local organization looking to donate dictionaries, but neither school was able to accept the donations due to the freeze.
These reviews from schools come as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis continues his efforts to keep "wokeness" out of schools and allow parents to have more of a say in their children's education.
HB 1467 also sets term limits for school board members and requires districts to make materials public. The Department of Education is required to publish a list of materials that were removed by school boards.
According to guidance the district sent to its schools, all books and materials must be age and grade-level appropriate. The required reading, outside textbooks, must support lesson objectives and be aligned with state standards. The reading must also be included on the course syllabus given to parents, and parents must be allowed to request an alternative text for any reason.
The bill I signed today provides protections for parents by ensuring curriculum transparency in schools.
In Florida, we are empowering parents. pic.twitter.com/nj4GSxZWEq
— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) March 25, 2022
DeSantis said the new law "ensures curriculum transparency" in schools so parents can be involved in education.
"In Florida, our parents have every right to be involved in their child's education," DeSantis said in a statement following the signing of HB 1467 in March. "We are not going to let politicians deny parents the right to know what is being taught in our schools."
Earlier this year, the governor passed the Parental Rights in Education Act that prohibits schools from discussing sexual orientation or gender identify with students from kindergarten to third grade.
Today, I signed HB 1557, the Parental Rights in Education Act, into law.
It ensures parents can send their kids to kindergarten without gender ideology being injected into instruction and they will be notified and have the right to decline healthcare services offered at schools. pic.twitter.com/OLnW2GLrJl
— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) March 28, 2022
A judge recently partially blocked the Individual Freedom Act (IFA), also know as the "Stop WOKE Act," that would expand anti-discrimination laws to prevent schools and companies from engaging in training that would place blame on students or employees based on their race, sex or national origin.
Newsweek has asked DeSantis' office and the Rotary Club for comment.
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