4.1015 Qs: Non-Latin Scripts; Etext Dictionaries... (3/101)

Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear (EDITORS@BROWNVM.BITNET)
Tue, 12 Feb 91 16:19:56 EST

Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 4, No. 1015. Tuesday, 12 Feb 1991.

(1) Date: 6 Feb 91 02:14:13 GMT (81 lines)
From: davidw@jessica.stanford.edu (David Whelan)
Subject Use of Non-Latin Symbol Sets in Computing

(2) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 91 17:34:54 EST (13 lines)
From: Willard McCarty <MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca>
Subject: machine-readable dictionaries

(3) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 91 20:32:17 EST (7 lines)
From: Germaine Warkentin <WARKENT@vm.epas.utoronto.ca>
Subject: E-Mail address needed

(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 6 Feb 91 02:14:13 GMT
From: davidw@jessica.stanford.edu (David Whelan)
Subject: Computers and Scripts information needed

[ This was posted to USENET's comp.fonts group (among amny others), and
strikes me as grist for Humanist's mill.
-- From koontz@alpha.bldr.nist.gov (John E. Koontz) ]

I am sorry about the extreme cross-posting of this message, but I feel
that it is justified. All flames should be directed to me and not
posted to the net.

Now for the point of this post:

I am a junior at Stanford University (Palo Alto, CA, USA) who is
beginning a research project on the use of non-Roman scripts with
computers. If you use computers in any capacity with a non-Roman
script, would like to be able to do so, know someone who fits one of
these categories, or have any information about computing in other
languages/scripts, I would appreciate it if you could take a few minutes
out of your busy schedule to answer a few questions for me.

Please e-mail all responses to davidw@jessica.stanford.edu. I will post a
summary if there is enough interest, but I don't want to fill up the net
with replies right now.

Here are some of the issues in which I am interested:

1. What is your native or current country, and what is the standard
language and/or script for computing there?

2. What is your native language/script? (I would appreciate a very brief
idea of what the script looks like, but I can find this out for myself,
so please don't spend a lot of time with this.) If you use any other
languages or scripts for work, education, or whatever, please explain
these also.

3. What computers do you use? In the past, has it been difficult for you
to use your language and/or script on these computers? Have you been
forced to use Roman English or some other language/script for your
computing applications?

4. Have computer manufacturers been slow to adapt to the needs of your
script or language? If so, why do you think this has occurred?

5. Have you been forced to learn another language or script (such as
Roman English) so you could utilize computers? Do you resent this, or
does it make you feel that your language/script is inferior to others?

6. Would you appreciate or benefit from a computer system (hardware,
operating system, and applications) that used your language/script
instead of Roman English or something else? Do you think friends of
yours who do not know English would enjoy such a computer system?

7. In relation to the above questions, do you think technology influences
language use, or does language use influence technology?

8. Should there be a standard language/script for international
computing? If so, what should it be and why? If not, why not?

That's a general idea of the issues that I'm pursuing right now. I know
that it's a little bit too broad and disorganized, but I'm sure I will
have a better idea of what I'm doing when I learn a little bit more
about people's opinions. If you choose to respond to this post (and I
hope you do, since this project is very important to me), please try to
address the questions which I posed above. In addition, I would really
appreciate it if you would add any information that you feel is relevent.

If you are in the Bay Area and would like to talk to me about these
issues, please include your phone number or address.

I hope this hasn't been too long!

Thank you for your help,

--------
David J. Whelan P.O. Box 2831
Junior, Symbolic Systems Stanford, CA 94309, USA
Stanford University (415) 497-4432
--------

(2) --------------------------------------------------------------21----
Date: Mon, 11 Feb 91 17:34:54 EST
From: Willard McCarty <MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca>
Subject: machine-readable dictionaries

A colleague, not a member of Humanist, is making a survey of all
machine-readable dictionaries of the sort represented by the
OED on CD-ROM, the Robert Electronique, and so forth. If you know
of any such, no matter how obvious these may seem to you, please
reply to Russ Wooldridge, Wulfric@vm.epas.utoronto.ca.

Thanks very much.

Willard McCarty

(3) --------------------------------------------------------------15----
Date: Mon, 11 Feb 91 20:32:17 EST
From: Germaine Warkentin <WARKENT@vm.epas.utoronto.ca>
Subject: E-Mail address needed

Does anyone know if John Hager of the Research Libraries Group at
Stanford can be reached on Bitnet, and if so, what his e-mail address
might be? Many thanks for any help you can give. Germaine.