Cross-posted to wiktionary and wikipedia; because I haven't seen a
good example lately of how a merging might work; and because I've
recently been through the cycle of slightly argumentative discussion
that Ec seems to be falling into. Please reply to only one list, and
feel free to add to or modify my example to illustrate your own ideas
of what such a project might look like. SJ
On 6/18/05, Sabine Cretella <sabine_cretella(a)yahoo.it> wrote:
> The differences between Gerard and me are based in a fundamental
> philosophical differences about the nature of Wiktionaries in
> particular and dictionaries in general. His position is a logical
> consequence from the premise that Wiktionary is just a translation
> dictionary; I disagree with his premise by considering Wiktionary to
> be much more than that.
It might be more constructive to think of this position (what I
believe to be Gerard's) as a logical consequence from the premise that
single-language Wiktionaries can be efficiently combined by taking
advantage of translation-dictionary content (specifically their
linkages between words)..
> Each Wiktionary may be tasked with explaining all
words from all
> languages, but it does so for the benefit of speakers of its own
> language. Gerard's Ultimate Wiktionary would work well if
> translatiions were simply questions of one on one relationships. As
> one example, the word "minister" exists in both Dutch, and you are
> probably safe to use the same word when going from Dutch to English.
> It doesn't work in the other direction. You can't translate the
> English "minister" to its Dutch equivalent when "predikant" is
> intended. Add in a third language and it can get very complicated.
Great, an example! Just what we need. Consider the following
English-language content:
________________________________________________________________
=minister=
== [English] ==
minister ([n.]) 1. [A person trained to perform religious ceremonies
at a Protestant church.]
"The minister said a prayer on behalf of the entire congregation."
|| [Dutch]: predikant; ... ||
minister ([n.]) 2. [A person commissioned by the government for public service.]
"He was newly appointed to be Minister of the Interior."
** || [Danish]: gesandt; [Dutch]: minister [m,f]; [French]:
ministre [m,f];
[German]: Minister [m], Ministerin [f]; [Italian]: ministro;
[Indonesian]: menteri;
[Interlingua]: ministro; [Japanese]: 大臣 (だいじん, daijin);
[Polish]: minister;
[Spanish]: ministro [m] ||
minister ([n.]) 3. [A person who serves others.]
minister ([vi.]) 1. [To tend to the needs of others]
minister ([vt.]) 1. [To dispense, to administer]
== [Dutch] ==
minister ([n.]) 1. [A person commissioned by the government for public service.]
"Zware voet jaagt minister Anciaux uit de bocht."
** || [Danish]: gesandt; [English]: minister; [French]: ministre [m,f];
[German]: Minister [m], Ministerin [f]; [Italian]: ministro;
[Indonesian]: menteri;
[Interlingua]: ministro; [Japanese]: 大臣 (だいじん, daijin);
[Polish]: minister;
[Spanish]: ministro [m] ||
________________________________________________________________
In the above examplt:
a) choosing your 'interface' language may change all text in [brackets],
b) content between || double bars || is stored in the database, so
that the two lists of translations for "minister (English, n., 2)"
"minister (Dutch, n., 1)" are actually referencing the same list of
database translations [marked above by a double asterisk **]
c) that bugbear of having multiple definitions for the same word in
some languages, but not in others, is finessed somewhat by relegating
translations to the defintion level, not the word level. [1]
> The Wiktionaries in individual languages are in a
better position to explain
> this kind of problem in the target language for the translation.
As far as I can tell, the current independence of "[content in]
Wiktionaries in individual languages" would remain, in the most
detailed proposed concatenation of many Wiktionaries into one. Things
that would change:
* All wiktionaries would share a single list of definition-linkages
(definition 3 of word A is the same as definition 1 of word B); many
of these linkages would be from one language to another, but others
would be between synonyms in a single language.
* All synonymous definitions would share a single list of
translations, so that this list need not be pasted 100 times (and
updated 100 times for each update).
Sabine writes:
All this was explained more than once (in the
discussionlists and on
meta) and obviously you did not read it, but you only read and write
what you like.
For reference, I have tried to follow this matter carefully. I have
discussed metadata issues with linguists who are designing other
Wiktionary extensions. I have asked similar questions myself, of
Gerard on many occasions, and in conversations with both of you. :-)
And STILL the most complete published plans for, or descriptions of,
an "Ultimate Wiktionary" -- or a merging of many wiktionary projects
into a single one under any other name -- are not clear. Please do
not blame Ec for not seeing things exactly as you do.
Adding a third language is not complicated, as the
relation and the
Adding a third, and then a tenth, language IS complicated. It is
doable, but complicated, and necessarily slightly imperfect [1].
However, following the Wikimedia principle of doing useful things
quickly and not worrying about theoretical perfection, this will be a
useful project long before its nuances are completely satisfactory to
all.
based on such an idea. International organisations,
like Lisa (and they
are THE language specialists for localisation) and Kennisnet (they are
education specialist and work in many languages) are interested in it
and believe it its value otherwise why would they have paid for the
Of course it has value to try to make such a project work. This does
not mean it is not difficult; it is! These international
organizations know how difficult it is; I imagine they are curious to
see how we will proceed. Let us see if our efforts make something
useful, despite the difficulty involved. I am confident that they
will... whatever our project is called.
+SJ+
[1] There is a difficult question, which we are ignoring for now :
just how precisely do all the translations of "minster (English, n.,
2)" have synonymous definitions? When are two different words ever
truly synonymous? But that is a discussion for another month.