8751: Re: 8749: New Haitian Creole translation (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: MIT2Haiti@aol.com

Corbetters,

Hats off to Ben!

I think that ALL competent productions of literature in Haitian Creole which 
support the Orthography Law of 1979 SHOULD BE morally supported by all of us.

Classical literature translated from other languages TO HAITIAN CREOLE -- OR 
literature produced originally IN HAITIAN CREOLE -- ALL should have an 
already-existent mechanism for production and delivery to the Haitian People.


BIG QUESTION:

Who is going to pay for it all???


ESPECIALLY, who is going to pay for the creation of the computer-based tools 
which could eventually help to mass-produce such efforts -- based upon the 
intellectual output of the humans NOW doing 100% of the translation/editorial 
work, expertise which will ALWAYS be needed for quality control purposes, no 
matter how well machines do the grunt work?

Do we NOT want LOTS of uniformly-spelled HC literature to train the next 
generation of HC speakers/readers/writers???

Or provide shelves of literature to enhance Second Language Initiatives in 
U.S., Canadian and European school systems???


WHEN are authors, publishers and those capable of producing Haitian Creole 
literature and editorial tools GOING to GET THEIR ACTS TOGETHER to 
collaborate to make each others' jobs easier/more viable???


Almost all of us serve with Microsoft Word to produce text within our 
computers (a very few others of us continue to insist upon serving with Word 
Perfect).

WHY SHOULD NOT Haitian Creole have MORE THAN a word-by-word spell checking 
mechanism which could RIGHT NOW be embedded within their word-processing 
software (thanks to Educa Vision!!!) -- IF ONLY H.C. writers and editors 
WOULD ACTUALLY PURCHASE AND SUSTAIN SUCH ALREADY-EXISTING SOFTWARE SOLUTIONS 
-- IN ORDER TO ENCOURAGE THE DEVELOPMENT OF EVEN MORE THAN THAT WHICH ALREADY 
EXISTS!


BASED UPON SUCH LACK OF ENTHUSIASM AT THE PURCHASER LEVEL:

WHY SHOULD ANY SOFTWARE DEVELOPER RISK TRYING TO DEVELOP SOMETHING MORE THAN 
ALREADY EXISTS FOR HAITIAN CREOLE?


A comprehensive spellchecker/almost grammar checker has already been very 
dynamically and commercially produced for Papiamentu in the Dutch Antilles 
and is now packaged officially by Microsoft (see: 
http://hometown.aol.com/mit2usa/Polderland-MIT2.htm and 
http://hometown.aol.com/mit2usa/Polderland-Papiamentu.htm)!

Something which does not yet exist for Haitian Creole!

WHY SHOULD MIT2 ATTEMPT TO CREATE EVEN MORE?

SUCH AS FRENCH-HAITIAN CREOLE-FRENCH OR ENGLISH-HAITIAN CREOLE-ENGLISH 
automated translation software WHEN ITS CURRENT SUBSISTENCE EXISTENCE IS NOT 
YET BEING SUSTAINED BY HAITIANS???


Such an undertaking has NOTHING to do with technological possibilities; it 
has EVERYTHING to do with sociological and economic realities!!!


Polderland would NEVER have succeeded in its R&D work on behalf of Papiamentu 
without the support of European Economic Union, Dutch, and Dutch Antilles 
international/national/local institutions (including banks)!

WHY SHOULD ALL THE DYNAMICS ASSEMBLED TO CONNECT ALL THE DOTS TO PRODUCE 
SOMETHING AS DYNAMIC AS THE PAPIAMENTU SPELLCHECKER (ALMOST A GRAMMAR+ 
CHECKER) NOT BE ASSEMBLED TO PRODUCE EVEN MORE FOR HAITIAN CREOLE?


Well, it's not going to happen IF such an iniative as MIT2 -- which has 
existed at the personal, sacrificial level for almost 3 decades, coupled with 
all the international strategic alliances it has "hatched" over recent years, 
which can bring to it all the value-added linguistic/technological realities 
it has attracted over the very long-term -- IS ALLOWED TO DIE!

What do you think is going to happen?


How does ANYONE or ANYTHING on this planet live without more than trickle 
sustenance???

Why would MIT2 -- birthed and financed mostly by an American widow and her 
son -- be any different?

What do we want????

Marilyn

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