An American university's linguistics department has released vital data to help the nation of Haiti recover from January's earthquake.
The Linguistic Technologies Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, has aided the recovery by making its database of the Haitian Creole language public.
Computer giant Microsoft has already used the information to create a web-based translation tool. French charity Translations Without Borders has used the data for a medical triage dictionary, which it plans to distribute to doctors in the devastated Caribbean country.
Haitian Creole is based on French - the official language of Haiti's "elite." However, in the two centuries since French colonialism ended, it has evolved considerably, incorporating many outside influences.
"French speakers can sort of puzzle through it, but Creole isn't penetrable if you don't know French," said LTI senior systems scientist Robert Frederking.
The Carnegie Mellon database dates to the 1990s, when it was created for a project sponsored by the United States Department of Defense. The aim was to created rapid-deployment translation devices for the military, but Frederking says the prototype system was never tested, to his knowledge.
Now the masses of information have been made public to aid the Haitian recovery effort. The data is available online, with restrictions, and researchers at LTI are working on "an updated translation system for Haitian Creole that would incorporate the latest translation technologies."
With such a high level of poverty in the nation, "nobody is going to make money on a Haitian Creole translator," Frederking said. "But translation systems could be an important tool, both for the relief workers now involved in emergency response and in the long-term as rebuilding takes place."
The Haiti earthquake of January 12th, 2010, is estimated to have claimed 150,000 lives, with at least 3 million people affected.
31 January 2010
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