Peter Constable wrote:
> It is this phenomenon which is the focus of
> interest for me and my SIL colleagues: a single language that
> is written by different portions of the language community
> in different writing systems, particularly different writing
> systems based on different scripts.
I would include braille in this scenario.
Braille transcription is another facet of the issue, but it involves
practically every written language.
Some languages approximately have a 1-to-1 relationship between the
graphemes in their visual scripts and braille patterns. Some other languages
have more complex and indirect relationship between the two worlds. E.g.,
English and other languages normally require "level 2 braille", which is a
quasi-logographic system of abbreviations for words or part of words.
Conversely, Chinese brailles are strictly phonetic, having signs for initial
consonants and final "rhymes". Japanese braille uses a single kana
syllabary, etc.
Any project in the area of automatic transcription should start by analyzing
what is already done in the braille world, in order not to reinvent the
wheel. Conversely, any progress in the automatic transcription across
scripts could potentially be reused in braille technology.
It may turn out that the two kind of transcriptions share a lot of points,
such as conversions depending on context, or the need of dictionary look up
in some cases.
> 3. A single document is created that can be displayed in
> terms of alternate
> writing systems using font mechanisms, possibly relying on
> transduction
> done within "smart" fonts.
Peter, the fact that SIL has a nice "smart font" technology available does
not mean that this technology should be used also for brewing beer!
IMHO, font technology should be used only for displaying text, which is
where it applies. Other tasks, unrelated to this problem, should be handled
with different tools.
Of course, some basic algorithms could be in common, such as moving letters
around, splitting or joining ligatures, etc. But the similarity ends here,
methinks.
_ Marco
