Sorry I couldn't intervene quickly enough guys. Dealing with lots of requests from people about the announcement.
Bob has mentioned several of the things we are looking at right now, and concrete ways to meet specific needs. I'm on several networks with many translation agencies and associations of translators/interpreters, with confcalls and email communication on a very regular basis. I am corresponding with many Haitians who want to translate and do interpretation for their fellow countrymen. The flow of requests for translation from/into so many languages for this crisis is astounding. Current estimations is that a potential of 40,000 NGOs will be involved in assisting in this disaster relief effort. I'm hearing now of teams being deployed from Brazil, Bolivia and the Philippines. Cargo ships are coming from Italy now as well. The translation and interpretation needs vary based on type of content, the intended speaker and receiver of the message, means of communication. It is not a one-size-fits-all communication need right now. As for the languages in Haiti. Well, many of my publications concerning Haitian creole language and technologies (https://www.box.net/shared/bz4sq9jx88) also include descriptions of the sociolinguistic factors which affect the approach and means of implementing technologies. Both French and Haitian Creole are official languages in Haiti, both spoken and written forms. The IPN spelling system for Haitian Creole adopted in 1979 was in fact an Orthography Law. Experts have documented 10+ different spelling systems over the history of the language, and that does not include the hybrid forms. The majority of the Haitian population is illiterate. Many reports up to the end of the 90s said that it was 80-90% illiteracy in any language. When I was on a trip for CMU in 1998, all of the students we were recording for the speech data could read and write (as well as speak) in Haitian Creole very well, compared with the reading level of Haitians of the diaspora whom I had recorded in 1997 on other trips in the US and France. Communication with regard to crowd control, medical treatment and other areas is much more effective into Haitian Creole. Other types of communication between the participating NGOs and other organizations would be from/to French. Much depends on the purpose of the communication and the participants. In this time of psychological and physical trauma, it is much more effective to speak to the Haitians in their original mother tongue (Haitian Creole). A small part of the population does grow up only hearing French at home, and many speak Creole until they start going to school and then learn French, just as is the case in various Africans countries. It is sad that it took a disaster for Haitian Creole to receive so much recognition as a language. I'm not subscribed to [email protected], so can someone please repost this to that list, since it will certainly rebounce to me. Jeff http://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffallen ====== Quoting Robert Frederking <[email protected]>: > Hi Vadim, > Yes, French is the principal written language, but most of the > population only speaks Creole (and is illiterate). We ourselves are > indeed looking at making speech-based systems (and the rarest part of > the data may be the speech data). There may also be unforeseen benefits > to the data being available. For example, it appears that Doctors > Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières) may make use of the bilingual > medical phrases as-is, through Translators Without Borders (Traducteurs > sans Frontières). So who knows how this may help. Cheers. > > Bob > // > Vadim Berman wrote: > > Hi Robert, > > > > These are commendable efforts, but isn't French the principal written > > language in Haiti? Or you are talking about a speech to speech system? > > > > Best regards, > > Vadim > > > > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Robert Frederking" <[email protected]> > > To: <[email protected]>; <[email protected]> > > Sent: Friday, January 22, 2010 6:49 AM > > Subject: [Mt-list] Public release of Haitian Creole language data > > byCarnegie Mellon > > > > > >> The Language Technologies Institute (LTI) of Carnegie Mellon > >> University's > >> School of Computer Science (CMU SCS) is making publicly available the > >> Haitian Creole spoken and text data that we have collected or > >> produced. We > >> are providing this data with minimal restrictions in order to > >> allow others to develop language technology for Haiti, in parallel > >> with our > >> own efforts to help with this crisis. Since organizing the data in a > >> useful > >> fashion is not instantaneous, and more text data is currently being > >> produced > >> by collaborators, we will be publishing the data incrementally on the > >> web, > >> as it becomes available. To access the currently available data, please > >> visit the website at http://www.speech.cs.cmu.edu/haitian/ > >> > >> _______________________________________________ > >> Mt-list mailing list > > _______________________________________________ Mt-list mailing list
