191 replies to this topic

[nairi]

Wiki-style? So everyone and their uncles, whether they know the language or not can contribute and pollute?

Exactly. What we need is a professional university sponsored project. I don't mean to sound elitist, but this may well be the only way to be taken seriously.

[nairi]

By "usage" I meant the preference of one synonym over another in Eastern Armenian vs. Western Armenian, not by usage as in an example sentence.

That too should be specified in any decent dictionary. In the same way that "truck" should be specified as US and "lorry" as UK. And even more so if there is a (slight) difference or nuance in the definition depending on the dialect. Cross-reference could also be very useful, especially on the internet.

[Gor-Gor]

Then why are you transliterating it as if it is written as տաշնագ in Armenian?
Shahan, you should know by now that you're on your own in tis battle because you are wrong. I have said this before that I was brought up in what you western Armenian but I also know that Բ=B Գ=C/G and Դ=D Տ=T and so on.

Arpa, with all due respect, don't you get tired of making the same point to same people, every day?

I mean, at some point, don't you just come to the conclusion that Shahan and I are of one mind, you are of another, and we will never come to a compromise?

As much as I think you are dead wrong in your classification of Western Armenian phonology as incorrect or secondary, I have come to accept that that is your belief and that I cannot change it. Can this be a 2-way street already?

Edit: I wanted to get across the fact that you, Arpa, often bring up the WA phonology issue in almost every (probably every) thread in this Language subforum. Honestly, I think it takes away from the relevant thread (in this case, Jbeed and spell-check), especially when no one brought up the WA phonology issue and there was no hint at it, no reason to bring it up. We all know how you feel about it, so why do you keep bringing it up when it is irrelevant to thread? It is my hope you stop doing this! Not just for my own blood pressure and sanity, but for yours as well.

Edited by Gor-Gor, 15 July 2007 - 11:46 PM.

[Sip]

Much like there is "English" and "American English", there is also "Armenian" and "Western Armenian". Although the western dialect is legitimate with all it's new pronounciations and changing around of how the letters sound, we must acknowledge that it is just that ... a dialect derivative of "Armenian".

Edit: I am not a linguist and don't claim to be. Just my .02 (opinion).

Edited by Sip, 15 July 2007 - 09:41 PM.

[Shahan Araradian]

Much like there is "English" and "American English", there is also "Armenian" and "Western Armenian". Although the western dialect is legitimate with all it's new pronounciations and changing around of how the letters sound, we must acknowledge that it is just that ... a dialect derivative of "Armenian".

Edit: I am not a linguist and don't claim to be. Just my .02 (opinion).

And note, Sip, that neither Eastern Armenian phonology nor morphology is the same as Classical Armenian.

Indeed, both Western Armenian AND Classical Armenian have different phonology and morphology than Classical Armenian, and in the case of Eastern Armenian written in Armenia, even the ORTHOGRAPHY is different now!

To conclude and in a nutshell, there are three major types of Armenian:
1) Classical
2) Eastern:
+ Iranian variety
+ Armenia variety
3) Western

And there are 3 points of interest in linguistics:
1) Phonology
+ Classical
+ Eastern
+ Iranian-Armenian (particular difference is the way in which ռ and ր are pronounced differently than in ROA)
+ From ROA
+ Western

2) Morphology
+ Classical
+ Eastern
+ Western

3) Orthography
+ Traditional (Diaspora, including Iran)
+ Reformed (Soviet Armenia)

Edited by Shahan Araradian, 15 July 2007 - 11:43 PM.

[Shahan Araradian]

Wiki-style? So everyone and their uncles, whether they know the language or not can contribute and pollute?
Look at some of the info in wiki and tell us which is correct that Armenians came from China or Sweden, or that we are descendants of Noah??

I am an advocate of such open-source projects, and not only for software but for knowledge as well.

Have you read Eric Raymond's "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" essay?

This type of open-source model would work, I think, very effectively for a dictionary. The tremendous success of not only open-source software but also open-source content in the form of Wikipedia shows how powerful this model can be.

Various levels of access control can be put into place to ensure that the community's data is not corrupted by some yahoos. Those sorts of technical details can be sorted out as the project progresses.

I think that the open source model can be applied to an Armenian dictionary because the knowledge is out there among us: particularly those among us who are linguists as a hobby, and those among us who might be linguists as a profession. It is the former, I expect, who will contribute the most. Lastly, this isn't rocket science!! We're not really innovating here, except for the "knowledge development model": massively parallel and global network of linguist enthusiasts who are self-selected to participate in creating the grandest Armenian language dictionary yet.

Exactly. What we need is a professional university sponsored project. I don't mean to sound elitist, but this may well be the only way to be taken seriously.

Good luck in getting such a project started. While I do support such an endeavor, it requires some bucks and is also not as efficient as having half a dozen to dozens of enthusiasts contributing... (It's exactly like the Linux vs. Microsoft game. Microsoft no longer has a future in the operating systems business... THAT is the power of self-selected individuals collaborating globally using the Internet.)

Til then, we can whip up a 20,000 word dictionary within 6 months, all on the volunteer time of half a dozen Armenian language enthusiasts.

The spell-checking part would be done by a single software engineer. The content providers would focus solely on creating the content for the dictionary as laid out nicely by Nairi above. (The only thing I would add to her list is Classical Armenian phonology to the content, and Classical Armenian morphology to the spell-checking engine.)

Edited by Shahan Araradian, 15 July 2007 - 11:45 PM.

[Shahan Araradian]

"Kat" with the 'a' as in dart. The K is more of a cross between "K" and "G" and comes from deeper down inside the throat from the back of the tongue and the sound is much more muffled. The english "K" originates higher up in the mouth with more "air".

You are right. In Eastern Armenian phonology, <կ> stands for a Velar ejective or /kʼ/ in IPA.

Sound bite of what you are describing:
http://upload.wikime...ive_plosive.ogg

(Eastern Armenian phonology has introduced ejective sounds into its version of Armenian phonology that did not exist in Classical Armenian phonology. There are no ejective sounds in Western Armenian.)

Edited by Shahan Araradian, 16 July 2007 - 12:18 AM.

[nairi]

Good luck in getting such a project started. While I do support such an endeavor, it requires some bucks and is also not as efficient as having half a dozen to dozens of enthusiasts contributing...

Then our language deserves to be doomed.

We had the Sovetakan Bararan back in the Soviet Union. All we need to do is digitalize it and add more info. But we absolutely need professional lexicographers working on this project, constantly innovating and adding new words and info. That's what any decent dictionary with names like "Oxford English Dictionary" are meant to do. We can have a couple of free dictionaries, wiki-style, but if we are to take ourselves seriously, we also need a professional academically sponsored dictionary.

[Shahan Araradian]

Then our language deserves to be doomed.

LOL. No, you're the one that's doomed because of your pessimism! The Armenian language will do fine with an open source model.

We had the Sovetakan Bararan back in the Soviet Union. All we need to do is digitalize it and add more info. But we absolutely need professional lexicographers working on this project, constantly innovating and adding new words and info. That's what any decent dictionary with names like "Oxford English Dictionary" are meant to do. We can have a couple of free dictionaries, wiki-style, but if we are to take ourselves seriously, we also need a professional academically sponsored dictionary.

Do you mean to say that people who contribute in the free software movement (e.g. the GNU Project, FSF), the open source software community (e.g. Apache, Linux), and the open source content community (e.g. Wikipedia) don't take themselves seriously?

Have you seen the quality of this body of free and open source work???

I personally am not in the business of fund-raising to hire some "professionals." If you want to go that route, more power to you.

This isn't computer science, nor theoretical physics, nor rocket science. It's inputting existing words into a system, and a large group of self-selected volunteers can handle that task quite well.

I'm of the school of thought that recognizes the inherent power of Internet-enabled citizen media, community participation, and open source... The Armenian language will do fine in this model...

Anyways, enough talk... Let's see which route will see the light of day first and bring about a higher quality dictionary; we've seen what happened to the Encyclopedia Britannica after the advent of Wikipedia, Microsoft after Linux, WWW servers after Apache, and if you still can't see the the power in the wiki/open source model...

P.S. The Wikimedia foundation has the Wiktionary project. The Armenian version is at http://hy.wiktionary.org/

An example word: Կարդալ
http://hy.wiktionary...

One can even add a sound bite to Wikitionary...

The only downside to Wiktionary that can be improved upon is that there's no way to add built-in intelligence to do things like spell-checking and word conjugation/declension. Another would be to provide data structures to make everything more searchable.

Edited by Shahan Araradian, 16 July 2007 - 09:19 AM.

[nairi]

I personally am not in the business of fund-raising to hire some "professionals."

This is precisely the problem in our community. We feel we need to raise funds for every little thing. Have we not heard of capitalism? When was the last time Oxford raised funds in order to keep up a professional dictionary managed by academically trained lexicographers? When was the last time Cambridge raised funds in order to publish English grammar books written by some of its best grammarians? And no, not "professionals," but professionals. Have a little respect!

You touched the core of our problem: we expect everything to be done freely and voluntarily. We say "shame on you" if anyone of us tries to sell something to a fellow Armenian. Perhaps it's high time we learned the ropes of capitalism. The first rule is: if there is no demand, then there will be no supply. From what I get from you, there is absolutely no demand for a professional dictionary. The result is that you shall get what you deserve, that is, no professional dictionary.

As for 20,000 words: that's a joke. That's not even a pocket dictionary. My Sovetakan Bararan has a minimum of 120,000 words, and even that is hardly enough for me. But then, I belong to the category of people who demand a professional dictionary. From what I am understanding, I am a very small minority. Hence, there shall be no supply. Therefore my conclusion that our language is doomed and deserves to be doomed.

[Shahan Araradian]

This is precisely the problem in our community. We feel we need to raise funds for every little thing. Have we not heard of capitalism? When was the last time Oxford raised funds in order to keep up a professional dictionary managed by academically trained lexicographers? When was the last time Cambridge raised funds in order to publish English grammar books written by some of its best grammarians? And no, not "professionals," but professionals. Have a little respect!

Certainly Oxford and Cambridge have to raise some sort of funds to HIRE these people!!

In the case of the universities you mentioned, the University of Oxford has a £3.6 billion (7.3 billion USD) endowment and the University of Cambridge has a £4.1 billion (8.3 billion USD) endowment. At a conservative 10% return on investment, that is $730 milliion USD and $830 million USD per year cash flow for each of these universities.

You are asking whether Oxford or Cambridge have to raise funds to higher academicians? They ALREADY HAVE!!! That was step 1.

Now, you need to have some sort of cash flow to hire these Armenian professionals. You might be able to employ them for quite cheap in Armenia: perhaps less than $25K per head. So we don't need millions for this project, perhaps around $100K which is peanuts compared to the millions raised for the Telethon to produce a high-quality and free online dictionary.

You touched the core of our problem: we expect everything to be done freely and voluntarily. We say "shame on you" if anyone of us tries to sell something to a fellow Armenian.

Why do you think I said you need to raise money? In order to PAY your fellow Armenians -- maybe a group of 4 professional in Armenia -- to do the job. You DO need to raise capital -- in capitalism -- to get the work you need done accomplished. And you'll be PAYING a group of ARMENIANS to do this work. Who said anything about NOT paying Armenians? (That was your imagination talking...)

Perhaps it's high time we learned the ropes of capitalism.

Don't underestimate your fellow Armenian

The first rule is: if there is no demand, then there will be no supply.

What about things that occur in nature? There's plenty of rock and ocean, but not much demand for them. Same thing with stars [except for the Sun...]

From what I get from you, there is absolutely no demand for a professional dictionary.

If I thought that, then I would NOT suggest having an open source dictionary. Having an open source dictionary implies that there's a community of Armenian language enthusiasts out there...

We will build an open source Armenian dictionary and see what happens. As it stands, Nayiri.com provides the most advanced free Armenian dictionary on the Internet. But it's not open source in the sense that you can't edit it... We need something that can be editable by anyone -- by the community of Armenian language enthusiasts...

The result is that you shall get what you deserve, that is, no professional dictionary.

I think (and I emphasize the "I") an open source Armenian dictionary is the QUICKEST way to a professional dictionary on the web. (Entries from your Sovetakan Bararan, or any other dictionary, may be added, as long as it agrees with the licensing of the GNU Free Documentation License -- and I think all works of the former Soviet Union are fair game.)

Who says that open source cannot be professional? 2/3 of all Web Servers run the Apache HTTP Server, an open source WWW server. The vast majority of business servers now run Linux. And all of the protocols of the Internet -- including TCP/IP -- are open source. And not to mention the high quality of Wikipedia... So the argument against open source producing PROFESSIONAL quality is not valid.

As for 20,000 words: that's a joke. That's not even a pocket dictionary.

Excuse me your highness for insulting your intelligence with 20,000 words.

My Sovetakan Bararan has a minimum of 120,000 words, and even that is hardly enough for me.

Shakespeare used a total of about 22,000 different words in his work, so I think you are a super-genius if you command more than 20,000 words.

But then, I belong to the category of people who demand a professional dictionary. From what I am understanding, I am a very small minority.

I don't know. I have not surveyed all 8 million Armenians, and you shouldn't multiply my opinion -- or, rather, your interpretation of my opinion -- 8 million times across all Armenians.

Hence, there shall be no supply. Therefore my conclusion that our language is doomed and deserves to be doomed.

I'm sure you already know this, but you are quite a pessimist.

One of the MAJOR reasons I want to create a FREE and OPEN SOURCE (and HIGH QUALITY) Armenian dictionary is BECAUSE I want Armenians to have free access to this information. Because I WANT to create demand for the Armenian language. And I don't expect Armenians to pay money for an electronic dictionary, because not American pays a penny for an electronic dictionary for his/her computer!!! It comes FREE now in the information age! (so to answer a previous question more directly: I wouldn't put my own money into a business venture that's going to produce an electronic Armenian dictionary. And NOT because there's no demand for Armenian dictionaries; it's because no one would buy it... It's expected to be free...)

If you are INDEED that smart and command 120,000 words, then you can write a few charming letters to some people and get them to create a project to get that 120,000 word "Sovetakan Bararan" -- and MORE -- online. (Around $100K should be enough to employ 4 professionals in Armenia for a year.)

Meanwhile, I'll be working on the open-source Armenian dictionary for us ordinary Armenians who only command less than 5,000 Armenian words and will be satisfied with an initial 20,000 words. When we find some "elite" Armenians to contribute to the effort, then we'll be soooo lucky as to have access to another 100,000 words.

Anyways, I'm wasting too much time pontificating when I can just be writing the code...

Edited by Shahan Araradian, 16 July 2007 - 08:55 PM.

[Էլիա]

Anyway, I think nayiri.com is an excellent website for Western Armenians who need to increase their vocabulary and spelling skills. And I don't see why some Eastern Armenians are mad about this, especially since there's a substantially larger amount of Eastern Armenian online dictionaries than Western Armenian online dictionaries. In fact, this might be the only Western Armenian online dictionary, and the spell checking makes it a lot more useful! So fellow Armenians, please stop fighting and just accept the fact that Eastern and Western Armenian are both equal dialects, and therefore, should be treated and recognized in the same manner. Thank you.

Edited by Էլիա, 17 July 2007 - 03:01 PM.

[nairi]

Shahan, stop talking out of your buttocks and start using your head. Of couse we have to pay our professionals. We pay them by buying their work and not by acting as charity foundations. You're the one who started talking about fund-raising, not me.

Excuse me your highness for insulting your intelligence with 20,000 words.
Shakespeare used a total of about 22,000 different words in his work, so I think you are a super-genius if you command more than 20,000 words.

It's not about me commanding more than 20,000 words. It's about me wanting to look up words used by other people that I do not know. How often has it happened that you read a word, in any random language, and looked it up in your pocket dictionary to find that it doesn't have an entry? I've had that problem with my four volume 120,000-word dictionary, which speaks volumes in itself.

As for your open-source blah blah, I have never said that we should not have free dictionaries that anyone and everyone can edit. What I am saying is that we also need a professional dictionary if we want to be taken seriously and if we want our language to survive.

By the way, the OED is not a completely closed source. Anyone is welcome to send in words that have not yet been taken up by the OED. But the OED does have the final say and only enters words depending on certain criteria, which I think is only fair.

[Shahan Araradian]

Shahan, stop talking out of your buttocks and start using your head.

That was rather un-lady like. I'd rather you take a point I made and comment at it instead of hurling an insult...

Of couse we have to pay our professionals. We pay them by buying their work and not by acting as charity foundations. You're the one who started talking about fund-raising, not me.

Charity works wonders in capitalism... And it did so even during the Renaissance (Italy). Ever heard of the Medicis?

It's not about me commanding more than 20,000 words. It's about me wanting to look up words used by other people that I do not know. How often has it happened that you read a word, in any random language, and looked it up in your pocket dictionary to find that it doesn't have an entry? I've had that problem with my four volume 120,000-word dictionary, which speaks volumes in itself.

As a first step, I'm more interested in providing that 5% of Armenian words that will be used by 95% of Armenians. Those interested can add another 100,000 or 1,000,000 words if they have the will and ability to do so. (If each word takes up even 10 KiloBytes, that would be 1,000,000 words x 10 KiloBytes per word = 10 GBytes. And I can buy 10 GigaBytes of RAM for only $500 -- and in 18 months it will cost only $250 by Moore's Law -- and have an entirely IN MEMORY database for SUPER fast lookups for words. Alternatively, I'll have 2 GBytes of RAM, and 10 GB of disk which costs $0.25 per GB of disk x 10 GB = $2.50 for a slightly slower dictionary lookups, around 10 times slows.)

So even if you throw a million Armenian words at the system (which I think is impossible b/c Armenian does not have that many words) the system can still handle it.

As for your open-source blah blah, I have never said that we should not have free dictionaries that anyone and everyone can edit. What I am saying is that we also need a professional dictionary if we want to be taken seriously and if we want our language to survive.

Our language will survive not by having a "professional dictionary" collect dust in some Oxford, Cambridge, or Harvard library.

Our language will survive by Armenians SPEAKING it...

And what better way than distributing the basics of a language -- a dictionary -- Freely to them? What better way than having them PARTICIPATE in the creation of the greatest Armenian dictionary that ever existed in the history of Armenian civilization?

By the way, the OED is not a completely closed source. Anyone is welcome to send in words that have not yet been taken up by the OED. But the OED does have the final say and only enters words depending on certain criteria, which I think is only fair.

You can't use OED in your custom application without paying royalties.

By having an open source Armenian dictionary and spell-checker, we ensure that ANY Armenian software may have access to these basic features to have Armenian language support in the software. If you close-source it, then you hinder growth of Armenian software.

Anyways, enough pontificating....

[nairi]

Anyways, enough pontificating....

You mean talking out of your buttocks. Yes, I have made my points, I stand by them, and I won't repeat them.

[Էլիա]

You mean talking out of your buttocks. Yes, I have made my points, I stand by them, and I won't repeat them.

nairi, I just want to know because I didn't really see it in your previous posts, but what is your argument against nayiri.com?

[nairi]

I have never argued against nayiri.com and I don't care to. I have been arguing for a professional and academic online dictionary that covers all Armenian dialects. All I have said is that nayiri fails to fulfill my wishes.

[Էլիա]

I have never argued against nayiri.com and I don't care to. I have been arguing for a professional and academic online dictionary that covers all Armenian dialects. All I have said is that nayiri fails to fulfill my wishes.

Oh, well that would be a worthwile project! But it would sure cost a lot of money and take quite a while. Do you have any plans on how to do this?

[nairi]

Oh, well that would be a worthwile project! But it would sure cost a lot of money and take quite a while. Do you have any plans on how to do this?

Why do I have to be the one to initiate this project? This project should have already started in a renowned linguistics faculty in Armenia! We have plenty of good paper dictionaries with lots of potential. The first phase would simply be to digitalize everything we have. The next phase is to start adding new words and information. This should be an ongoing, everlasting project, and it should start AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, no matter how expensive it is!

[Էլիա]

Why do I have to be the one to initiate this project? This project should have already started in a renowned linguistics faculty in Armenia! We have plenty of good paper dictionaries with lots of potential. The first phase would simply be to digitalize everything we have. The next phase is to start adding new words and information. This should be an ongoing, everlasting project, and it should start AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, no matter how expensive it is!

Sorry, what I meant to ask was do you have any idea about who or what organization should be contacted, or maybe if there should be a petition or something...