WeSay
WeSay ajuda não-lingüistas a construir um dicionário em sua própria língua. Ele tem várias maneiras de ajudar os falantes nativos a pensar em palavras em sua língua e inserir alguns dados básicos sobre elas. O programa é personalizável e orientado a tarefas, dando ao conselheiro a capacidade de ligar/desligar tarefas conforme necessário e à medida que o usuário recebe treinamento para essas tarefas.
WeSay usa um formato XML padrão e pode ser trocado automaticamente com nossa ferramenta orientada para lingüistas como Fieldworks Language Explorer (FLEx). Os usuários podem colaborar via unidade flash USB, e-mail e conexões de rede.
Telas
Around the world, speakers of lesser-known languages are eager to develop their own languages. Part of that development will mean collecting stories for publication and developing dictionaries. In many cases, they are limited to working without the help of a computer. This is a difficult environment for computer use, as there is often:
- No previous computer exposure
- No local computer training or maintenance
- Limited electricity
- Limited or non-existent connection to the internet
- Dusty, wet, hot, humid conditions
WeSay is an Open Source project aimed at providing computer tools to help communities perform several language development activities on their own. The project develops tools that are simple, task-oriented, and available on hardware appropriate to the environment. At the same time, these tools enable data sharing with advisors running more traditional, high-powered linguistic and publishing software. The idea is to empower communities to do their own high-quality data gathering, leaving the more technical aspects of publishing to more traditional platforms.
WeSay will be of interest in those situations where native speakers are ready to play a direct, ongoing role in the construction of a dictionary and collection/transcription of stories in their own language, using something other than paper.
WeSay has various ways to help native speakers to think of words in their language and enter some basic data (no backslash codes, just forms to fill in). They can make local, simple printouts for local use, checking, and peer review. The program supports the sharing of gathered words via USB key or email (where available).
