Mikel,
Your search arrived at the right place, Lancashire Dialect. I've avoided
the word 'dialect', but the page is correct. No standard of writing
exists, all written material is transcribed from speech. If you would
like to know more about the language pair, this is an informal (and, in
keeping with the area, slightly aggressive) FAQ,
archaicgroves/projects/en-lanc/about
The page explains most or all questions about sources, resources, the
connection to Apertium, and other subjects. I'd note here that there is
a lot of writing, a volume of 'literature', in this language.
An apertium-apy and heavily-hacked apertium html-tools page is running
live at,
archaicgroves/projects/en-lanc/live
More background: the area still offers the chance of progress, unlike
other places in the world, but the official statistics tell a sad story.
The town has spiralled down from the age of the Industrial Revolution,
with no regeneration, poor education results, professionals leave after
two or three years of service, the recent press has been a disaster,
putting the town in front of the nation in an unfavourable light. I
suppose this might be a philosophical question of 'Perception of
Equality'.
Tiring of this, a local council worker had heard of something called
'Open Source'. She couldn't convince anyone to come here, but was
surprised to find an ex-network engineer who had given up his career to
do nothing but build websites, becoming a Mozilla Advocate. For a
stipend, she hired him. And promoted the idea as 'Digital Literacy'. But
they want more than that, they want people to have a chance.
This man has had a hard time over the last year. The schools do not know
what 'Open Source' is, even as he ran initiatives which are thriving in
other parts of the country. He's picked up only two people, myself and a
man called Steve, who has somehow taught himself to a good level of
Python coding while caring for his mother.
And so to the show---Paul and his partner Michelle brought all their
Open Source children's technology (conductive Playdough,
mini-breadboards etc.). Steve unwrapped his hardware. And I tried from a
different direction. People here are still... the word is 'nostalgic',
I think. What if I had a live, serious, translator for the old language?
What if people did not see a 'computer', but 'history' and an Aspidistra
plant? That is your explanation (aside from my own enthusiasm, of
course).
The connection to the Manchester Open Source communities is vital. Their
attempts to move Open Source out of professional culture have not been
successful. Why should they travel (Manchester is big, we are 16 miles
away) to a place where it is known there is a problem with digital
literacy? Where nobody knows what a 'web browser' is? We need to give
them a platform, so they can help us.
Anyway, we were surrounded by children, and I've been told that Steve
and I surprised everyone with our work. Visitors and parents wondered
what the Aspidistra plant was 'for', and laughed at the John Wayne
films. Maybe next we get to explain what 'Open Source' is, and how it
might work for them?
Rob
On Mon, 2017-03-06 at 20:32 +0000, Mikel L. Forcada wrote:
> Rob,
>
> this is an intriguing story — could you give us some clues?
>
> Are you running Apertium to produce, from standard English, subtitles
> in a specific variant of English unique to Lancashire
> (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancashire_dialect)? Is there a
> standard way of writing it? Where are the sources?
>
>
> Could you give us more background as to why this exhibit (running on a
> reclaimed computer, cool!) is being shown at such a socially
> challenged part of the city? Was this part of some initiative to
> visualize the troubles faced by the residents there?
>
>
> The Manchester part of the story is quite opaque unless you give us
> some hints.
>
>
> But the part I understood was cool!
>
> Cheers
>
> Mikel
>
>
> El 06/03/17 a les 17:10, robert ha escrit:
>
> > Hello,
> >
> > You will need to be generous to see much in this effort. Perhaps the
> > social background? We are working from a housing estate where 4 in 5
> > occupants are on welfare, and where the central complex is being
> > flattened by bulldozers. As I type.
> >
> > First two pictures show the English -> English-Lancashire pair exhibit,
> > with the home website for the pair running on a reclaimed Thinkpad (look
> > to the right. The picture frames are loaded with XML). Third picture
> > shows a screen displaying a recent film of 'Emma', subtitled in
> > English-Lancashire, via Apertium and my Python subtitle-conversion
> > script (but most of the day I ran old John Wayne movies).
> >
> > Mostly the reaction from visitors was "What's THAT?" Followed by a
> > massive wide smile when they figured out what was going on. Several
> > people, despite zero publicity and our cramped position in the building,
> > sat down to watch. I learned today, too, that we've built bridges to
> > Manchester, who had not expected anything like Virtual Reality or The
> > Lancashire Converter from us outback types. And the local councillors
> > were stunned at the scale and success of the show.
> >
> > So this is very small-scale, but Apertium has brought smiles where they
> > are not often seen. And may even, in a small way, bring some good, too.
> >
> > Regards,
> > Rob
> >
> >
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> --
> Mikel L. Forcada http://www.dlsi.ua.es/~mlf/
> Departament de Llenguatges i Sistemes Informàtics
> Universitat d'Alacant
> E-03690 Sant Vicent del Raspeig
> Spain
> Office: +34 96 590 9776
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