ELL: 1999 Linguistic Institute: Endangered Languages workshop
Jeff ALLEN
jeff at elda.fr
Mon Apr 12 08:23:56 UTC 1999
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Date: Mon, 12 Apr 1999 10:23:56 +0200
To: endangered-languages-l at carmen.murdoch.edu.au
From: Jeff ALLEN <jeff at elda.fr>
Subject: ELL: 1999 Linguistic Institute: Endangered Languages
workshop
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To those interested in Endangered languages:
I just saw the following information posted to the LINGUIST list.
-----
10.526, Calls: Endangered Languages
1) From: "Simon Donnelly" <104simon at muse.wits.ac.za>
Subject: 1999 Linguistic Institute: Endangered
Languages workshop
http://linguistlist.org/issues/10/10-526.html
-----
Best,
Jeff
=================================================
Jeff ALLEN - Directeur Technique
European Language Resources Association (ELRA)
&
European Language resources Distribution Agency
(ELDA)
(Agence Europ.enne de Distribution des
Ressources Linguistiques)
55, rue Brillat-Savarin
75013 Paris FRANCE
Tel: (+33) 1.43.13.33.33 - Fax: (+33)
1.43.13.33.30
mailto:jeff at elda.fr
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Date: Tue, 13 Apr 1999 08:43:43 -0400
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<endangered-languages-l at carmen.murdoch.edu.au>
Subject: Re[2]: ELL: Transparent Language
Systems offer and smaller c
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From: MQuinlan at transparent.com
Date: Tue, 13 Apr 1999 08:43:43 -0400
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<endangered-languages-l at carmen.murdoch.edu.au>
Subject: Re[2]: ELL: Transparent Language
Systems offer and smaller c
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> In this Irish case, what was the cost of the
project? can we get that?
>
> Matthew McDaniel
Mathew,
Thus far we have done all of our langauge
packages out of our own pocket. Thus
far: Spanish, French, German, Latin, Italian,
Russian, Swedish, Dutch,
Portuguese, Polish, Arabic, Irish.
A "rational" business might have done five or
so. And our top five languages are
perhaps 95% of our sales. We look for excuses
to push the boundaries and do more
langauges. In the case of Irish, we know we
cannot get it on the retail shelf in
the U.S., but we think over time it may sell
reasonable well in Ireland.
We have also created another package using
our LanguageNow! technology, called
"51 Languages of the World" which has a small
amount of content for 51
Languages. Again, we thought we might be able
to sell it (we were right) and
it's a tremendous opportunity to do even more
languages.
The consumer software business is complex,
but the general shapes of the key
issues are fairly straightforward, and I
think anyone on this list is able to
more or less think about this from our point
of view and come to see the ame
barriers and opportunities we see.
On the Irish project, for instance, the
potential Irish-market sales gave us a
way around the no-demand problem. It may not
sell, but I think it will, so we
did it. And the Bord na Gaeilge gave us the
ability to deal with the langauge
issues and get them more or less "right"
without setting ourselves up as
arbitrators of regional rivalries etc. That's
a huge help, because we don't want
to get it wrong, but we don't want to get
stuck in unending and essentially
unresolvable discussions about language
either. (Although a lot of people in our
company think of those kinds of discussions
as recreation, so some of it is
fine.)
The 51 Languages package is very similar as a
business issue. Software stores
won't sotck a product unless it "turns,"
meaning at least X packages are sold
per store per month. Lithuanian is not going
to "make the turns" by any store's
criteria. But we figured if we had a lot of
languages in one box, a store could
just stock the one box, and the aggregate of
sales of the one box might make the
turns. It did. We actually started out with
"31 Languages of the World" and it
was successful enough that we upgraded it a
few weeks ago to "51" and that's
just starting to ship into the stores now.
So the obvious business thing is to ignore
non-commercial languages. We have a
huge number of products we are doing
involving major languages. Just the
Internet projects alone are more than we have
the capability to do.
But, if possible, it would be nice to make
packages for very low-density
languages. That's the idea of the ELRP
Project. The "Cultural Partner" cannot
afford the project, but in this world there
must be groups or individuals who
care enough about revitalizing the language
of a culture that they will put up
some money.
Philanthropists like to do good things, but
to have them part with their money I
felt they probably wanted to know that
- their money will be used effectively (We
reuse our LanguageNow! engine
which is the expensive part resulting in
great value)
- their money won't be wasted (we can give
good assurances the project will
succeed based on past projects)
- that the first grant won't turn into
requests for more and more money (thus
the fixed price)
- and that the result will be valuable
(they can see the completed project in
other languages before they start).
Michael
------------------------
Michael Quinlan
President
Transparent Language, Inc.
22 Proctor Hill Rd.
P. O. Box 575
Hollis, NH 03049 USA
"Revolutionary
Language Software"
603-465-2230 ext. 303
603-465-2510 (fax)
mquinlan at transparent.com
http://www.transparent.com
http://www.freetranslation.com
------------------------
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