Flickr for Language Learning
Random idea:
It would make sense to automatically generate picture dictionary pages like this one, in this case for animal words in the Lakota language, using services such as the Flickr API.
Tim Bray has a post about the utility of using image search as an Online Picture Dictionary. He gives the example of figuring out what a citrouille is with Google Images.
It would be neat to go further: one could build whole lists like the Lakota learning page above — obviously you’d have more luck searching for the English translation of the Lakota words, and there’s no shortage of hits, but a horse is a horse, of course.
See for yourself: here’s a šunkawakan and a igmuwatogla and a šunkmanitu tanka is. (Hmm… I wonder if šunk is some sort of prefix?)
And as long as we’re on the topic of things Siouxan , here’s an interesting article on Scrabble as a learning tool for Dakota. I hope they rebuilt distribution and points on the tiles to correspond to Dakota frequencies!
Update #2: Wow, we got linked twice by Language Log! ☺
- Benjamin Zimmer has more details about Dakota Scrabble.
- Bill Poser describes another variety of Scrabble in the Carrier (or Dakelh) language of British Columbia.
Thank you for posting an article on our Dakotah Scrabble game. We did in fact change letter frequencies and the point values of letters based upon the words we had in the Offical Dakotah Scrabble Dictionary.
Hi there Tammy!
Thanks for stopping by, it’s amazing how small the world seems to be on the internet.
As for Dakota, I ended up poking around on the web looking at all the work the Dakota have been doing in language preservation, and I found a lot of very innovative work! I wish you the best of luck.
Language preservation and revival are interests of mine. I wonder if the Dakota communtity have looked into these ideas?
(On a geekier note, this whole topic of Scrabble has really gotten me thinking about some ideas for posts — it so happens that Scrabble is an excellent (and familiar) way to explain some rather complex ideas about something called language modelling in a way that doesn’t involve too much math. I’m working on some more posts along those lines…)
O dear, this comment is longer than the original post ☺
Well in any case, perhaps we can stay in touch? I think you could really enlist the help of the language geek crowd to help promote your language over the web.
šunka means dog. wakan means something like “wondrous, mysterious, unusual” - because horses were a new domestic animal like dogs, but far larger and more useful.
Heya Lameen, thanks for the explanation.
I bet the various words for “horse” in American languages are interesting across the board… I did some work in college on Hopi, and IIRC the Hopi word for horse is spelled “kaway” — borrowed from Spanish “caballo.”
I seem to remember that the Hopi word for “watermelon” was a compound derived from “kaway,” — something like “kawayvatgat” or “kawayvatngat,” where “vatgat” or whatever it was meant “sweat.”
That made such an impression my that I’ve never forgotten it. But it’s been a while, perhaps I’m hallucinating. ☺ Too bad there’s no copy of this at hand to jog my memory.
Thanks for stopping by, I’ve always enjoyed your post since Languagehat introduced me to it.
I have been searching high and low for help. I even went to one of the endangered language organizations and asked if a linguist could possibly help us. My e-mail was forwarded to someone in the organization but never answered after that. Awww.
But really, I paid a guy to come and train me for 3 days on a program called Opus, so I could create some simple language games for children. Even my four year old grandson Elijah plays some computer game about “same” and “different.” My first Opus project [of course in Dakotah] is part of a packet on protecting mother earth as part of the world’s earth day recognition. My attempts to create a simple drag and drop of trash into a trash can are simply pitiful. :) I am, however, all about persevering — so I’ll keep trying.
I am going to give some serious thought to all of your suggestions, but I’m thinking about perhaps a weblog for children in different dakotah community schools and facilitating children talking with each other. What do you think of that?
Hi Tammy,
Sorry for the delay in responding, my weblog system got confused and accidentally classified your comment as spam. Sigh, computers! :)
I would really like to try to wrangle up some of my language geek friends and colleagues to see if we can help you get some more language games together. If you’re aiming at young kids, what about a simple web-based matching game with pictures and a choice of words, rather like in the original post? (It could even start with animals…)
I think the idea of helping kids send messages to each other in Dakotah over the net is great, I bet kids would find that fun. It’s especially interesting because it increases the potential size of the learner community.
I’ve done a bit of reading about Dakotah on the web (mostly at Wikipedia) and in my copy of the “Atlas of the North American Indian,” and it’s my impression that there are several separate communities where Dakotah/Lakota/Nakoda languages are spoken. Are the differences small enough that all of them could participate?
From what I can see in the pictures on the Sisseton-Wahpeton College bookstore, you’re using an orthography that includes letters like ṭ, ḳ, ṣ, and ŋ. I have a little tool that might help learners to type in those sorts of characters over the web. I will try to get it adapted to Dakota and get the address to you.
Is there some place where I can get a look at the whole orthography?
It’s quite fun to be in touch with you, I’m a language nut in general but until this Scrabble topic came up I’d not looked into Dakota much. You’ve got some great ideas — the rap song in Dakota mp3 is cool!
Hey,
Just an update, we are getting ready to release the home version of Dakotah SCRABBLE in conjunction with a community SCRABBLE tournament.
And, as part of a curriculum project we’re working on, I would like to create a sort of computer concentration game where you would click on a flashcard and it would turn over then you would hear the recorded word and then you keep clicking (and hearing) different cards until you find its match.
Do you have any ideas about a user-friendly computer program to create that type of application?
Hi Tammy,
Awesome! I’ve been talking to some friends of mine, and I hope to have some news for you pretty soon here. Please feel free to email me at pathall@gmail.com.