Here’s a disclaimer: I first came to Nigeria in 2001 on a short term trip to help people finish off a dictionary as part of a Bible translation project. I thought that might be the last of my dictionary-making, but even though it’s not really my job now I reluctantly find myself drawn back to …
There is a fantastic program called WeSay for facilitating dictionary development. It’s particularly aimed at helping people gather and describe words in their own language even without strong computer experience or traditional linguistic training. It doesn’t replace analysis tools like FieldWorks, but presents a complementary approach and is interoperable. Where Fieldworks lets you document a …
Executive summary: ‘Literal’ is a darling word for many, attractive because it suggests straightforward, direct and reliable communication. However, the fact is that it gets used to mean quite a few different things by different people and if subjected to sufficiently intense scrutiny the assurances it offers are shown to be meaningless. While carrying emotive …
adj characterised by legs falling off. eg. “Daddy, I’m scelolytic. Pick me up.” From Greek σκελος part, leg + λυω to loose, unhitch. Variant Podilytic.
A couple of curious Wikipedia lookups in the realm of History turned up an intriguing Irish-origin French General who gets remembered for unfortunate quotes, including these: Concerning the floods of the Garonne river of 1875, in Toulouse he exclaimed “So much water! So much water!” (Que d’eau! Que d’eau!). After the Republicans’ victory in the …
I never really had a problem in the UK with my MacBook Pro getting too hot, but Nigeria’s another story. With ambient temperatures often around 35°C rather than 20°C, and when stressing the processor a fair bit, the processor was often running up to 90s°C, so that the fan had to kick on. Eventually it …
Here’s a great site about using WeSay to document languages and collect words for dictionaries from someone working in East Congo.
I’ve issued my first releases of keyboards for typing special Nigerian letters easily on a Mac. These facilitate producing the following special letters: əɛɨɔa̱e̱u̱i̱o̱ɓɗƙ₦, and hígh tóne, lòw tòne, fâllîng tône, and nãsãl fõrms.
For linguists and Bible translators frustrated with the many problems of Windows machines (mainly viruses) this looks quite interesting: A beta release of Balsa ‘Basic Language Software Appliance’: About Balsa
Nigeria’s a great example of a place where Wycliffe’s Vision 2025 needs to be worked out. But what’s that vision? Here’s a video to explain in general: [youtube_sc clip_id=ZLWdWOoU0u4] Nigeria has the complete Bible in 19 or 20 languages. It has over 500 living languages. There are quite a few languages with New Testaments, but …