Linguists Introduce New Software Prototype (fwd)

[phil cash cash]

Associated Press

Linguists Introduce New Software Prototype
03.03.2005, 01:18 PM
http://www.forbes.com/home/feeds/ap/2005/03/03/ap1861446.html

Guatemalan linguists have distributed a prototype for a computer program
that operates in the Mayan Indian language of Quiche, a project aimed at
preserving the ancient language and raising its profile worldwide.

The prototype was developed by language experts at The Academy of Mayan
Languages in conjunction with computer students at the state-run San
Carlos University, and was distributed this week to about 100 potential
users for their feedback, including native speakers, publishing houses,
consultants and cultural experts.

The project was inspired by a law, passed last year, that promotes the
use and preservation of native Indian languages, Academy president and
linguist Modesto Baquiax Barreno said Tuesday in an interview with The
Associated Press.

The law "challenged us with the important goal of distributing writings
in the Mayan languages, and that led us to take advantage of existing
technology," Baquiax said.

Academy director Rigoberto Juarez said designers hoped the project would
"raise the status of the language to that enjoyed by others in these
types of systems on a worldwide level."

"As quiche speakers ... we want to give our language the same political
profile that other languages have."

The program was created with OpenOffice.org software to operate on the
Linux system.

The prototype contains menus, instructions, help texts, and grammatical
and spell-checking programs in the quiche language, a feat that took
"hard and extensive work," Baquiax said, noting that designers inserted
8,000 quiche words in the program. About 1.2 million of Guatemala's 14
million inhabitants speak quiche.

In the future, the academy hopes to design programs in the majority of
the other 21 Indian languages spoken in Guatemala.

The designers also will urge computer manufacturers and software
designers to take the languages into account when designing their
products, including redesigning keyboards to meet the languages'
specific needs.

"Some in this country say it is difficult to write (in quiche) and that
it is impossible to learn because it doesn't have a fixed grammatical
structure or because the sounds are different and strange," Baquiax
said. "Those are discriminatory arguments."

The software is the second recent project in Guatemala aimed at
promoting the Central American country's majority Mayan cultures. In
December, President Oscar Berger announced the establishment of a
university dedicated to rescuing and developing ancient Mayan
knowledge.

The Mayans were a complex society known for building massive pyramids
and cities. They were advanced astronomers who created a calendar to
measure time that rivals those of today, and were accomplished
mathematicians who introduced the concept of zero.

The Mayan Empire emerged in about 250 B.C. in and around what is now
Guatemala, reached its peak from about A.D. 250-A.D. 900 and ended with
the arrival of Spanish conquerors in the 16th century.