Why discourse study makes great translator training
2018 was something of a departure from normal patterns for Ashe and for me. To the surprise of many, I did almost no checking of translation with Ashe, but focussed on studying 6 Ashe stories – some true, some folk tales. I had reasons to think this was absolutely necessary, and even though it’s taken …
Research in progress: Making dictionaries serve translation
Here’s an abstract that has been approved for presentation at a Bible Translation conference: Making dictionaries serve translation John Roberts has lamented the tendency of Bible translators to ignore lexicography until after a New Testament has been completed and printed. The consequence is that while the translation process necessarily reveals much of the lexical richness …
I don’t really understand it so it must be great!
Journalists love writing about themselves and Nigerian journalists are no exception. I came across this gushing report on the Nation’s awesome achievements whilst searching for a turgid (but apparently award-winning) article on threats to Nigerian languages from the dash to English. I’m honestly trying not to be unfair here and to allow for the possibility …
New keyboards for typing Nigerian languages
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.
Instant Linguistic Workstation: just add netbook and stir
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