UNICODE UPDATTING
Louanna Furbee
FurbeeL at missouri.edu
Wed Sep 28 19:49:25 UTC 2005
>Jimm,
Quick reply. EMELD is an excellent set of practices (you can read
about them on the E-MELD web site - you can google it). I recomment
it. They'll probably have other workshops. Write them to get on a
list to be notified about them. Write to Helen Dry (hdry@
LinguistList.org, I think is the address). Louanna
>I was looking over government grants, and it seems that there was
>an E-MELD conference for the purpose of standardizing the
>documentation of languages, especially endangered languages.
>Many people are all ready well into the composing of their
>particular language dictionary. The E-MELD conference proposes a
>number of standards, called "best practices", which includes
>writting all dictionaries, and other language work using unicode
>fonts.
>The thought is a good one, that one would no longer have the problem
>of corruption in the transferr of fonts/ characters from one PC
>system to another. In whatever manner, fonts, diacritics, accents
>etc. that one writes in using Unicode (Latest version 4.0.0), the
>same will be received and viewed upon the receiving PC, as it was
>exactly written at the source of origin.PC person Of course, that
>will happen now when any PC shares the same fonts as the sender.
>Some of us encountered this problem as we upgraded systems. My
>initial Ioway ~ Otoe-Missouria Dictionary, a Siouan Language, was
>written with a Tandy's from Radio Shack, Inc, which is now an
>antique system. Those records composed on the Tandy can no longer
>be read by my present PC. Fortunately, I had already converted them
>to a higher windows version, Yet, in some cases, accents and
>several special fonts where mutated irregardless.
>What is the thoughts of those who are well into their dictionary
>work and may be confronted with the task of redoing it all over
>again in the Unicode fonts. Is it not unlike the large nations
>imposing their national language on the minority languages, Tagalog,
>English, Japanese, et.al., on the individual Filipino, the Native
>American and Spanish/ Chinease Americans or the Ainu. The plan for
>a standard is well meant, but devaluation sets the course for the
>minority community language to become an endangered language, and
>with that, a whole culture world view and way of thinking. Perhaps
>it is not the same thing. What are the thoughts of others,
>especially those who have had to already go back into their
>documents and reedit the whole work.
>Jimm
--
Prof. N. Louanna Furbee
Department of Anthropology
107 Swallow Hall
University of Missouri
Columbia, MO 65211 USA
Telephones: 573/882-9408 (office)
573/882-4731 (department)
573/446-0932 (home)
573/884-5450 (fax)
E-mail: FurbeeL at missouri.edu
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