The Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum Linguistic Research and Database Design in Polyalphabetic Environments Torsten Roeder (BBAW), Yury Arzhanov (Ruhr Universität Bochum)
Ms. Paris BnF 5847, f. 5: Muslim scholars in discussion.
Arabic translation of Dioscurides’ Materia medica ( Ibn al- �������� al- �������� - ��������� al-adwiya wa-l-aghdhiya, ����� 1–4. ������ 1291 H. )
Filecards for the Greek and Arabic Lexicon ( GALex )
GALex
The Database Glossarium Græco-Arabicum
The Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum makes available information in the following fields of research: • the vocabulary and syntax of Classical and Middle Arabic; • the development of a scientific and technical vocabulary in Arabic; • the vocabulary of Classical and Middle Greek; • the chronology and nature of the translation movement into Arabic; • the establishment of the texts of Greek works and their Arabic translations.
The Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum online:
November 2013 Telota Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum BERLIN-BRANDENBURGISCHE AKADEMIE DER WISSENSCHAFTEN
November 2013 Telota Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum I Technical Challenges → polyalphabetic environment II Scholarly Requirements → linguistic database III Technical vs. Scholarly → concluding discussion OUTLINE
November 2013 Telota Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum 1 Languages Used in the GlossGA Interface 2 Unicode Character Corpus 3 Areas of Technical Challenges 4 Examples I. TECHNICAL CHALLENGES
November 2013 Telota Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum Languages used within the project: Ancient Greek Medieval Arabic Modern English Greek alphabet Arabic alphabet Latin alphabet 3 layers of diacritics optional vowel signs 1 layer of diacritics LTR (left to right) RTL LTR I.1. LANGUAGES
November 2013 Telota Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum Unicode Chart Range Description C0 Controls and Basic Latin 0000-007F Latin Alphabet Latin Extended-A 0100-017F transliteration symbols Latin Extended-Additional 1E00-1EFF transliteration symbols Greek and Coptic 0370-03FF Greek Alphabet Greek Extended 1F00-1FFF Greek Diacritics Arabic 0600-06FF Arabic Alphabet Arabic Supplement 0750-077F Arabic Alphabet Spacing Modifier Letters 02B0-02FF special Arabic characters → in total: about 450 different characters from eight different charts I.2. UNICODE
November 2013 Telota Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum Requirements: 1. Data input in all three alphabets with all vowels and diacritics → How to implement a comfortable interface? 2. Simultaneous display of texts in three alphabets and two directions → How to implement concurrent writing directions? 3. Search for terms, insensitive for diacritics or vowels → How to implement queries with different collation sets? I.3. REQUIREMENTS
November 2013 Telota Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum a Data Input b Writing Directions c Search d Search Terms I.4. EXAMPLES
November 2013 Telota Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum ʾ ˒ ʿ ˓ I.4.a. DATA INPUT
November 2013 Telota Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum [ʾ] U+02BE MODIFIER LETTER RIGHT HALF RING transliteration of Arabic hamza [˒] U+02D2 MODIFIER LETTER CENTRED RIGHT HALF RING more rounded articulation [ʿ] U+02BF MODIFIER LETTER LEFT HALF RING transliteration of Arabic ain [˓] U+02D3 MODIFIER LETTER CENTRED LEFT HALF RING less rounded articulation I.4.a. DATA INPUT
November 2013 Telota Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum Problem: Appearance vs. Encoding Users will normally choose charaters … → not because of their unicode description → but because of their appearance How to bring Unicode to the user? I.4.a. DATA INPUT
November 2013 Telota Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum Solutions: – restrict the characters accepted by the database → safe, but required validation methods – provide a virtual keyboard (onscreen) → user-friendly Alternative methods: – beta code → less recommendable from unicode point of view → but widely used I.4.a. DATA INPUT
November 2013 Telota Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum Phenomenon: Home (THEN) Arabic Glossary (THEN) ص (THEN) ةحص becomes Home > Arabic Glossary > ةحص <ص I.4.b. WRITING DIRECTIONS
November 2013 Telota Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum Problem: Strong vs. Weak Characters In Unicode, alphabetic characters are usually STRONG CHARACTERS which determine the writing direction, while punctuation characters are usually WEAK CHARACTERS which do not change the writing direction. → relevant in: comma separated lists, bibliographic references, breadcrumb lines, table alignments … I.4.b. WRITING DIRECTIONS
November 2013 Telota Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum Solutions: – insert a ”strong whitespace”: Unicodes U+200E (left to right) or U+200F (right to left) – or, if in HTML, set the writing direction directly: <span dir="ltr">…</span> I.4.b. WRITING DIRECTIONS
November 2013 Telota Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum GREEK ARABIC ENGLISH diacritics vowel signs diacritics not distinct not distinct distinct requirement: requirement: requirement: η finds also ἠ ἦ ἥببس finds also 7ب8ب8س d does not find ḏ Problem: Distinction vs. Collation I.4.c. SEARCH
November 2013 Telota Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum Solution: Greek Arabic English Greek collation Arabic collation Latin collation Collation Charts: <http://unicode.org/charts/uca/> Restrictions: – does not work for mixed texts → data needs to be separated – some environments do not support Arabic vowel collation → e.g. MySQL <6.0 I.4.c. SEARCH
November 2013 Telota Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum Phenomenon: – user searches for Arabic words starting with لم – truncation sysmbol (asterisk) appears at the wrong side لم* Problem: Neutral Writing Direction – the standard asterisk is a NEUTRAL CHARACTER – it adapts the main writing direction I.4.d. SEARCH TERMS
November 2013 Telota Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum Solution: Unicode Arabic Asterisk (U+066D), right-to-left ٭لم I.4.d. SEARCH TERMS
November 2013 Telota Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum Challenges for the Developer: – Unicode does not provide general truncation or joker symbols – different asterisk and joker signs must be processed – no standard solution available I.4.d. SEARCH TERMS
November 2013 Telota Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum Technical Recommendations for Polyalphabetic Environments – use software components that supports unicode thoughout – compose a project corpus of unicode character s – provide input methods to make the characters easily available – consider unicode writing directions and collations – make sure that all characters do not only appear correctly, but that they are also encoded correctly SUMMARY OF I.
November 2013 Telota Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum 1 Corpus → How to deal with a database of 70,000+ words? 2 Translation movements → How to visualize transformations of language structures? 3 Single Lexemes → How to transform the database into a dictionary? II. SCHOLARLY REQUIREMENTS
November 2013 Telota Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum How to deal with a database of 70,000+ words? – search form → user needs to know exactly what he/she is looking for – browsing (e.g. by sources and words in alphabetical order) → user needs to know roughly what he/she is looking for – visualization → statistical and/or graphical approach → user can explore the corpus II.1. CORPUS
November 2013 Telota Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum Distributon of sources in the GlossGA corpus Area size corresponds to number of words → Which sources constitute the major/minor parts of the corpus? II.1.a. CORPUS TREEMAP
November 2013 Telota Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum Distribution of words in one source Area size corresponds to number of words → What kind of vocabulary does constitute the source? II.1.b. SOURCE TREEMAP
November 2013 Telota Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum How to visualize transformation of language structures? → compare parts of speech in diagrams (experimental) II.2. TRANSLATION MOVEMENTS
November 2013 Telota Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum Compared Parts of Speech Blue: Greek Parts of Speech Red: Arabic Parts of Speech Bar Length: number of words of respective part of speech II.2.a. TRANSLATION MOVEMENTS
November 2013 Telota Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum Compared Parts of Speech X-Axis: Greek Parts of Speech Y-Axis: Arabic Parts of Speech Intersections: Dot size represents number of words transferred from Greek PoS into Arabic PoS II.2.b. TRANSLATION MOVEMENTS
November 2013 Telota Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum How to transform the database into a dictionary? Experimental preview: → collation of all entries of a Greek lexeme → ordered by Arabic lexeme → output with source and context II.3.a. SINGLE LEXEMES
November 2013 Telota Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum Export function via email: II.3.b. SINGLE LEXEMES
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