Arabic-L:PEDA:Description of Program for Comparing Dialects

[Dilworth Parkinson]

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Arabic-L: Moni 01 Jul 2007
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1) Subject:Description of Program for Comparing Dialects

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1)
Date: 01 Jul 2007
From:Max Maxxxxxxx <crocodyle at mail.ru>
Subject:Description of Program for Comparing Dialects

Hi! My name is Maksym Vaskiv. I'm from Ukraine.

I'm a student of Taras Shevchenko Kyiv National University. I study  
at the faculty of Oriental Philology. My speciality will be Arabic  
language and literature and English language. Beginning from the next  
September I will be a third-year student.

I think it advisable that I should tell you a few words about myself.  
Nobody can estimate themselves by their own. I can't tell you I'm a  
good student, I have no right for this. Maybe the only persons to do  
it are my lecturers, but because of their absence here, in my letter,  
my studying results can talk instead of them. So, now I have finished  
four semesters, I had 15 exams. The grades of all the exams were A.  
As for me, it is not a great achievement. The main achievement for me  
is possibility to use your knowledge in practice, helping people and  
making some great things.

Until now I hadn't had a lot of opportunities to do this. But,  
nevertheless, I've managed to use the few of them.

The first thing I want to say is that I'm always looking for Arabs to  
communicate with them and improve my spoken Arabic. But I do feel a  
lack of people from Arabic countries here, in Kyiv. So, though I have  
some friends who are Arabs, I'm hardly ever able to have some  
conversation with them.

One of the greatest achievements for me during my studying in the  
university was a practice in Egyptian Embassy in Kyiv. I have gained  
a lot of experience there. Now I'm planning to have a practice there  
again. And also in the embassy of Jordan. As I had realized before  
that it is necessary that person should know not just a literary  
Arabic Language, but, which is much more important, Arabic dialects,  
I'm trying to find some opportunity in learning and improving Arabic  
dialects.

I think, I have found a very original way for this. I have started  
creating a computer program for comparing and learning dialects. The  
program is constantly being upgraded. It is called "AudioLiahjat".  
The main goal for the program is to help the student studying Arabic  
language to understand the main differences in Arabic dialects, now  
mostly in phonetics, but in future, I think, in grammar and lexicon.  
And it should make the language adaptation of the student who hadn't  
been in any Arabic country before or is going to visit one of the  
countries much easier. Now the program contains literary Arabic  
language (not classical, but one used by people in Arabic countries  
to talk) and three dialects: Egyptian, Iraqi and Lebanese. Now I'm  
looking for people to help me in creating the program or sponsoring it.

Now I have a few projects for the future. Next September or October  
I'm planning to organize Middle East Culture Festival. There will be  
presented music, poetry and culture of Arabic countries, Iran, India.  
There will be folk bands, different seminars in national poetry,  
history of Arabic fonts and much more. Now I'm gathering the  
information about everything connected with that and contacting  
different bands, people and embassies to help me in organizing the  
festival.

The next project is creating Middle East culture magazine. I'm not  
sure about the time when the first one will be published. I have a  
lot of people wishing to write articles for the magazine. There are  
as Ukrainians, as Arabs and Iranians among them. But the main problem  
is a lack of money for publishing the journal. I'm going to visit  
some embassies asking them to sponsor the journal.

I feel a great desire in working with Arabic language, and  
especially, with Arabic dialects!


                                               DESCRIPTION OF THE  
PROGRAM

Last few months in my free time I have been developing the program.  
The program is called "Audio Liahjat".
The main object of the research is Arabic language. But as Literary  
Arabic Language isn't really spoken in Arabic countries I think it  
quite advisable that I should have studied Arabic dialects, which are  
real-time used languages that are possible to be named as separate  
languages connected with one main aspect - Allughatu Alarabiyatu  
Fusha - Literary Arabic Language.

This language isn't used by Arabs because of its artificiality and a  
lot of difficulties in grammar. Instead of it they prefer to use much  
more simplified dialects. Such a situation is common for all the  
Arabic countries when Arab from Lebanon can't understand another one  
from Morocco. It is quite possible that they would easier have a  
conversation with each other not by using Literary Arabic, but by  
using French language, as these two countries were French colonies.  
And the situation with the other dialects is the same, as most of the  
Arabic countries were colonies of European countries, such as France,  
England, Spain and Italy. And the dialects have a significant layer  
of the foreign words, which makes them a mixture of two languages.

It is logically to make a conclusion that if Arabs from different  
countries quite often do not understand each other, the situation  
with the foreigner is much more serious. Those who study Arabic after  
5 years in the university having been very good at Literary Arabic  
very often do not understand Arabs who use their local dialects. The  
students say the dialects are other languages. And it is true.

I know there are a lot of Arabic phrase books. And most of them are  
in Literary Arabic. So, their usefulness sometimes can be quite  
doubtful. The rest of the phrase books are created especially for  
some separate Arabic countries with using the local dialect phrases.  
This part of the phrase books is created for tourist countries, such  
as Morocco, Tunis, Egypt, Jordan. As my program uses audio materials,  
I had made a little research in this field of market. The results  
were the next: some programs that allow the user to listen to some  
words or phrases in Arabic exist, but mostly these are dictionaries  
allowing the user to hear only separate words. Those for listening to  
Arabic phrases are created mostly for one dialect, or in some cases,  
for three dialects from one region. Such programs that remain to be  
mobile for using in real-time conversation for Pocket PC, Windows  
Mobile or Symbian haven't been found by me, which don't excepts their  
existing.

The main concept of the program is that user is able to listen to all  
the spoken phrases written in the program. The program is made in  
Macromedia (Adobe) Flash, and its realization is very simple that  
only allows to express the main concept of it. Now it consists only  
of 3 dialects and Spoken Literary Arabic which is nevertheless used  
by Arabs, which is impossible to say about Simple Literary Arabic.  
But the difference between them isn't as significant as if comparing  
with dialects.

The program consists now of two parts.

The first is a list box for Phrases in Arabic. There are 150 phrases,  
which are split into 3 blocks: I - Questions, II - Statements, III -  
Negatives. The phrases use all the tenses that allows to see the main  
differences in grammar and phonetics of the dialects. The rest of the  
program field is divided into 2 equal parts for comparing the  
dialects. In the list boxes "dialects" you are able to choose  
dialects. When you push the sound buttons you can hear the phrases  
said by native speakers. In the field "written phrases" you can see  
the differences in writing the same phrases that allows you to learn  
differences in grammar.

The second part is a comparative phonetic table, which represents all  
the letters and sounds of Arabic language and dialects, showing the  
main differences among them and helping the user learn those sounds  
in literary Arabic language and its dialects.
The user is able changing the dialects. Also he can choose if he  
wants to listen to just separate sounds or sounds with a word-example  
beginning from that letter. He can change the mode of displaying the  
sounds between the table of the sounds and just a simple displaying  
of the sounds. On pressing the separate letter-sound the user is able  
to hear saying it by the native speaker.

This program is only a top of an iceberg. It only shows the main  
concepts, ways of developing and fields for using. I see a few ways  
of its development.

The first and the main field as for me is a market of dictionaries  
and phrase books which now has a lack of such a product. So the  
practical use of the program is obvious.

According to my vision of the program it should be used by people who  
don't know Arabic language at all or know some its main aspects, who  
is going to visit Arabic country. The other potential users of the  
program are Arabs traveling from one Arabic country to another.

At first from one to two thousands of most frequent phrases of Arabic  
language should be collected. How could it be done?

At first records of conversations between native speakers in every  
Arabic country should be made.  After that they should be converted  
into a text format which is much more convenient to research. Than  
with the help of the program of one lecturer from our university the  
text records should be analyzed and most frequent phrases and words  
should be collected.

Using the gathered information, those phrases and words should be  
voiced by a native speaker and recorded. The average number of Arabic  
dialects in Arabic country is about 10 - 15 dialects. The most  
frequently used are often 3 - 4 ones. So, as 22 Arabic countries are,  
we have a number from 66 to 88 dialects.

The user would be able not only to see what to say, but also he would  
hear the pronunciation, including such aspect as intonation that  
would make Arabs easier to understand the user. Also, some  
theoretical materials and recommendations could be given to a user  
about the pronunciation some specific sounds with a purpose to help  
the user in learning the new unusual sounds.

The phrases could be organized as a real-time conversation. The user  
chooses one block, for example "In The Hotel". He has a list of first  
more frequent phrases in the hotel and a list of potential replies to  
the phrases with translation. Having listened to the potential  
answers before, now the user is able to conduct the real-time  
conversation in the hotel. The program could be significantly  
upgraded by using the microphone of the Pocket PC, phone or notebook.  
In this case the program could understand the phrases told by  
somebody in the hotel, give the user the translation of them and a  
list of possible replies. The user is able to choose, should the  
program talk or should he repeat the phrases by himself. And, as for  
me, it could be a great way for people to learn languages, not even  
Arabic, but any language, because, when you talk, and the  
conversation isn't taken somewhere from a book, but it is real-time,  
you are able to control it, the learning of the language would fa!
  sten significantly.

Also I think it necessary to use in it 1000 of most frequent words of  
Arabic Language with pronunciation. This year in a month the Bachelor  
paper was defended in our university, the result of which is a  
frequency dictionary of Arabic Language that is the first in the  
world. Using the data from this Bachelor paper, we can get this 1000  
of most frequent Arabic words.

It could be created the core and the graphical surface of the program  
and the user would be able to download from internet the dialects he  
needs.

The main platform for this kind of program is mobile platform, such  
as I had told before as Pocket PC, Windows Mobile, Symbian so that  
the user is able to use it during the conversation which he has with  
native Arab speakers. For Windows platform or Mac it could be useful  
too.

Talking about another field of its using, I think it could be a great  
opportunity for students and lecturers of the Arabic to conduct some  
researches or learn common aspects of Arabic dialects' phonetics,  
grammar and lexis.

The main platform here is Windows or Mach. Firstly, the program could  
work with some additional equipment as Phonetic Rooms, Audio  
Recording Equipment.

Firstly, when the students learning Literary Arabic come to any  
Arabic country they can't speak, they do not understand anyone and  
often Arabs do not want to speak Literary Arabic. So, such a program  
could be a great opportunity for them to get acquainted with the  
dialect that is in the country they are going to visit.

Secondly, the program could help them to conduct some researches in  
comparing Arabic dialects' phonetics, grammar etc.

When upgrade the program, the students could record some phrases in  
dialects and the program would tell them about some wrong sounds  
pronounced by them in a wrong way, or, which is very important,  
correct the intonation of the pronunciation.

Showing the students grammar of the dialects could help them not only  
learn some common phrases, but learn how to speak some dialect on the  
beginning level which could make their adaptation in the Arabic  
country very easy. The additional thing for that is creating some  
exercises helping  to learn the grammar.
And such a program might be very useful for American army. As some  
troops are in Arabic countries, or in some other, the program would  
make their communication there much easier. And they would have an  
opportunity to learn some dialect or language very fast. In this  
case, of course, the list of phrases should be gathered according to  
the frequency of using them by the troops.

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End of Arabic-L:  01 Jul 2007