Twitter Gets Help from SLU Prof on How to Deal With Indigenous Tweeters (fwd link)

[Phillip E Cash Cash]

Twitter Gets Help from SLU Prof on How to Deal With Indigenous Tweeters

By Nicholas Phillips Wed., Apr. 11 2012 at 1:50 PM
USA

If you're one of the five remaining speakers of "Yuchi" -- a near-extinct
Native American language in Oklahoma -- your tweets will look insane, even
to those within your linguistic group.

That's because whenever you type in the "@" character, which is a part of
your alphabet, Twitter will (wrongly) think you're trying to refer to a
different user, such as @Joe_Smith.

This is the kind of programming problem that Twitter is coming across more
and more as it tries to make inroads where minority languages hold sway.
And it's exactly the kind of problem that a computational linguist such as
Professor Kevin Scannell of St. Louis University is equipped to solve.

Access full article below:
http://blogs.riverfronttimes.com/dailyrft/2012/04/twitter_indigenous_language_kevin_scannell_slu.php
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