The Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum Linguistic Research and Database Design in Polyalphabetic Environments Torsten Roeder (BBAW), Yury Arzhanov (Ruhr Universität Bochum) Ms. Paris BnF 5847, f. 5: Muslim scholars in discussion. Arabic translation of Dioscurides’ Materia medica (Ibn al- al-- al-adwiya wa-l-aghdhiya, 1–4. 1291 H.) Filecards for the Greek and Arabic Lexicon (GALex) GALex The Database Glossarium Græco-Arabicum The Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum makes available information in the following fields of research: • the vocabulary and syntax of Classical and Middle Arabic; • the development of a scientific and technical vocabulary in Arabic; • the vocabulary of Classical and Middle Greek; • the chronology and nature of the translation movement into Arabic; • the establishment of the texts of Greek works and their Arabic translations. The Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum online: November 2013 Telota Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum BERLIN-BRANDENBURGISCHE AKADEMIE DER WISSENSCHAFTEN November 2013 Telota Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum I Technical Challenges → polyalphabetic environment II Scholarly Requirements → linguistic database III Technical vs. Scholarly → concluding discussion OUTLINE November 2013 Telota Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum 1 Languages Used in the GlossGA Interface 2 Unicode Character Corpus 3 Areas of Technical Challenges 4 Examples I. TECHNICAL CHALLENGES November 2013 Telota Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum Languages used within the project: Ancient Greek Medieval Arabic Modern English Greek alphabet Arabic alphabet Latin alphabet 3 layers of diacritics optional vowel signs 1 layer of diacritics LTR (left to right) RTL LTR I.1. LANGUAGES November 2013 Telota Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum Unicode Chart Range Description C0 Controls and Basic Latin 0000-007F Latin Alphabet Latin Extended-A 0100-017F transliteration symbols Latin Extended-Additional 1E00-1EFF transliteration symbols Greek and Coptic 0370-03FF Greek Alphabet Greek Extended 1F00-1FFF Greek Diacritics Arabic 0600-06FF Arabic Alphabet Arabic Supplement 0750-077F Arabic Alphabet Spacing Modifier Letters 02B0-02FF special Arabic characters → in total: about 450 different characters from eight different charts I.2. UNICODE November 2013 Telota Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum Requirements: 1. Data input in all three alphabets with all vowels and diacritics → How to implement a comfortable interface? 2. Simultaneous display of texts in three alphabets and two directions → How to implement concurrent writing directions? 3. Search for terms, insensitive for diacritics or vowels → How to implement queries with different collation sets? I.3. REQUIREMENTS November 2013 Telota Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum a Data Input b Writing Directions c Search d Search Terms I.4. EXAMPLES November 2013 Telota Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum ʾ ˒ ʿ ˓ I.4.a. DATA INPUT November 2013 Telota Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum [ʾ] U+02BE MODIFIER LETTER RIGHT HALF RING transliteration of Arabic hamza [˒] U+02D2 MODIFIER LETTER CENTRED RIGHT HALF RING more rounded articulation [ʿ] U+02BF MODIFIER LETTER LEFT HALF RING transliteration of Arabic ain [˓] U+02D3 MODIFIER LETTER CENTRED LEFT HALF RING less rounded articulation I.4.a. DATA INPUT November 2013 Telota Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum Problem: Appearance vs. Encoding Users will normally choose charaters … → not because of their unicode description → but because of their appearance How to bring Unicode to the user? I.4.a. DATA INPUT November 2013 Telota Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum Solutions: – restrict the characters accepted by the database → safe, but required validation methods – provide a virtual keyboard (onscreen) → user-friendly Alternative methods: – beta code → less recommendable from unicode point of view → but widely used I.4.a. DATA INPUT November 2013 Telota Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum Phenomenon: صحة (THEN) ص (Home (THEN) Arabic Glossary (THEN becomes ص> صحة < Home > Arabic Glossary I.4.b. WRITING DIRECTIONS November 2013 Telota Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum Problem: Strong vs. Weak Characters In Unicode, alphabetic characters are usually STRONG CHARACTERS which determine the writing direction, while punctuation characters are usually WEAK CHARACTERS which do not change the writing direction. → relevant in: comma separated lists, bibliographic references, breadcrumb lines, table alignments … I.4.b. WRITING DIRECTIONS November 2013 Telota Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum Solutions: – insert a ”strong whitespace”: Unicodes U+200E (left to right) or U+200F (right to left) – or, if in HTML, set the writing direction directly: <span dir="ltr">…</span> I.4.b. WRITING DIRECTIONS November 2013 Telota Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum GREEK ARABIC ENGLISH diacritics vowel signs diacritics not distinct not distinct distinct requirement: requirement: requirement: d does not find ḏ 8س 8ب 7ب finds also سبب η finds also ἠ ἦ ἥ Problem: Distinction vs. Collation I.4.c. SEARCH November 2013 Telota Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum Solution: Greek Arabic English Greek collation Arabic collation Latin collation Collation Charts: <http://unicode.org/charts/uca/> Restrictions: – does not work For mixed texts → data needs to be separated – some environments do not support Arabic vowel collation → e.g. MySQL <6.0 I.4.c. SEARCH November 2013 Telota Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum Phenomenon: مل user searches for Arabic words starting with – – truncation sysmbol (asterisk) appears at the wrong side *مل Problem: Neutral Writing Direction – the standard asterisk is a NEUTRAL CHARACTER – it adapts the main writing direction I.4.d. SEARCH TERMS November 2013 Telota Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum Solution: Unicode Arabic Asterisk (U+066D), right-to-left مل٭ I.4.d. SEARCH TERMS November 2013 Telota Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum Challenges for the Developer: – Unicode does not provide general truncation or joker symbols – different asterisk and joker signs must be processed – no standard solution available I.4.d. SEARCH TERMS November 2013 Telota Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum Technical Recommendations for Polyalphabetic Environments – use software components that supports unicode thoughout – compose a project corpus of unicode characters – provide input methods to make the characters easily available – consider unicode writing directions and collations – make sure that all characters do not only appear correctly, but that they are also encoded correctly SUMMARY OF I. November 2013 Telota Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum 1 Corpus → How to deal with a database of 70,000+ words? 2 Translation movements → How to visualize transformations of language struCtures? 3 Single Lexemes → How to transform the database into a diCtionary? II. SCHOLARLY REQUIREMENTS November 2013 Telota Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum How to deal with a database of 70,000+ words? – search form → user needs to know exactly what he/she is looking for – browsing (e.g. by sources and words in alphabetical order) → user needs to know roughly what he/she is looking for – visualization → statistical and/or graphical approach → user can explore the corpus II.1. CORPUS November 2013 Telota Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum Distributon of sources in the GlossGA corpus Area size corresponds to number of words → Which sources constitute the major/minor parts of the corpus? II.1.a. CORPUS TREEMAP November 2013 Telota Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum Distribution of words in one source Area size corresponds to number of words → What kind of vocabulary does constitute the source? II.1.b. SOURCE TREEMAP November 2013 Telota Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum How to visualize transformation of language structures? → compare parts of speech in diagrams (experimental) II.2. TRANSLATION MOVEMENTS November 2013 Telota Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum Compared Parts of Speech Blue: Greek Parts of Speech Red: Arabic Parts of Speech Bar Length: number of words of respective part of speech II.2.a. TRANSLATION MOVEMENTS November 2013 Telota Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum Compared Parts of Speech X-Axis: Greek Parts of Speech Y-Axis: Arabic Parts of Speech Intersections: Dot size represents number of words transferred from Greek PoS into Arabic PoS II.2.b. TRANSLATION MOVEMENTS November 2013 Telota Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum How to transform the database into a dictionary? Experimental preview: → collation of all entries of a Greek lexeme → ordered by Arabic lexeme → output with source and context II.3.a. SINGLE LEXEMES November 2013 Telota Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum Export function via email: II.3.b. SINGLE LEXEMES November 2013 Telota Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum Recommendations 1 provide multiple access methods → support various user scenarios 2 invent statistical and visual evaluation methods → profit from electronic data processing 3 provide conventional scholarly formats → correspond to the community’s needs SUMMARY OF II. November 2013 Telota Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum Situation: Technical vs. Scholarly Requirements – which one goes first? → technical requirements as necessary basis → scholarly requirements as superior objective – both need attention from scholars – both need attention from techies → vice versa understanding → team competence LAST BUT ONE SLIDE November 2013 Telota Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum Thanks to you for your attention! Project Website http://telota.bbaw.de/glossga Contact Yury Arzhanov | [email protected] Torsten Roeder | [email protected] .