Public Domain Microsoft Windows Desktop Application of The Monier Monier-Williams Sanskrit-English Dictionary

[Eddie Hadley]

All,
Please be so kind as to review a proposal of mine at
http://www.ontology.demon.co.uk
for a Public Domain Microsoft Windows Desktop Application of The Monier
Monier-Williams Sanskrit-English Dictionary.

Regards,

Eddie Hadley

***@ontology.demon.co.uk
The Monier Monier-Williams Sanskrit-English Dictionary

Proposal for a Public Domain Microsoft Windows Desktop Application
a.. The Monier Monier-Williams Sanskrit-English Dictionary
b.. Electronic format
c.. IAST Transliteration Scheme (Unicode Standardised Roman
Diacritics)
d.. A Microsoft .NET framework Desktop Application (XP SP2 and above)
e.. Memory resident
f.. Fully scrollable
g.. Fully hyperlinked cross references
Based on the current IITS - Cologne Digital Sanskrit Lexicon - University of
Cologne.

[Nikolaj]

Post by Eddie Hadley
All,
Please be so kind as to review a proposal of mine at
Proposal for a Public Domain Microsoft Windows Desktop Application
* The Monier Monier-Williams Sanskrit-English Dictionary
* Electronic format
* IAST Transliteration Scheme (Unicode Standardised Roman
Diacritics)
* A Microsoft .NET framework Desktop Application (XP SP2 and above)
* Memory resident
* Fully scrollable
* Fully hyperlinked cross references

Hi,

I am not very fond of MMW Dictionary. Of course it is the main and
probably the most complete Sanskrit dictionary, and therefore most
frequently used dictionary, but still.

1.) It is very old. Ancient. A lot of information in it should be
updated. ALL ENTRIES should have references to the Sanskrit Literature.
There are some doubtful entries or entries coming from literature that
one cannot verify (MMW's own notes and collections, various lexicons,
etc...), which should be corrected. Cognates should be expanded with
more languages (not just main western languages, but include other
relevant languages, for instance other Slavic languages, where they
differ from Russian, Indian languages, etc...) and updated according to
recent knowledge.

2.) The word order of the dictionary is very strange regarding verbal
roots and its derivates. Using hyperlinks the words could be organised
differently - correctly as they should be according to Sanskrit Alphabet.

3.) Last, but not least, MMW's main intention was to make, I quote from
his preface "... surely then it need not be thought surprising, if
following in the footsteps of my venerated master (Prof H. H. Wilson), I
have made it the chief aim of my professorial life to provide facilities
for the translation of out sacred Scriptures into Sanskrit ...", or with
other words one of the aim, the first and the main aim, of his
dictionary was Christian proselytism. Extremely irritating.

-------------
What I would like would be *a new* electronic dictionary. And not just
dictionary, but also an electronic Sanskrit Literature Corpus which
would include complete texts. All words should be marked with additional
morphological and syntactical information (and more if necessary - rSi,
devatA, chandas - author(s), dedication(s), metre(s), etc...) and the
dictionary should be compiled from the words of the texts included.
Hyperlinks should point in both ways, from text into the dictionary and
from dictionary into the various texts. There should be a capable search
facility available, which would allow to limit the searches to only
certain kind of literature, or a few works that the user is currently
interested in, etc... It should also allow to search words and compile
different lists (of words, verses) using the mentioned additional
information, including various inflected forms, or user's own groups of
forms using various criteria, etc...

It should probably have to be made in Unicode encoding which would allow
to mix various scripts (IATS, devanAgarI, Greek script is used for Greek
cognates in MMW, but Russian - he writes Slavonic - cognates are
transliterated into (a strange?) Roman alphabet, instead of been given
in Cyrillic). Some thought should also be given to the input of text.
There should probably be allowed to use more than one transliteration
for input, like IAST, HK, ITRANS...

Such a thing would be ideal. A new version of MMW would maybe also be
usable and it would be much quicker and easier to finish it, but all old
errors would still be there, and there would be nothing new. In the end
I don't see a lot of difference between such new version and the
existing MW Sanskrit Digital Dictionary.

Nik

[Eddie Hadley]

Nikolaj,

Yours is really a 'state of the nation' review, not quite of what I am
proposing.

Cologne have a project up and running, addressing the update/correction
issue. Sanskrit -is- an ancient language, not too many new works are being
composed in it in these days! The style is Victorian, because it is
Victorian.

True, there are many manuscripts, yet to be identified, let alone
translated. But it is a task of no little magnitude. The resources of the
Government of the Indian sub-continent in co-operation with major academic
institutions round the globe are already harnessed to the task.
And are even now being placed on-line.

Unicode issues regarding Vedic accents etc. is a major item on the Agenda of
The International Symposium on Sanskrit Computational Linguistics to take
place next month (October 2007).

Views formed with eyes wide shut have little value.

Your argument, on a topic as potentially inflammatory are religious
imposition, is a typical example:

To carelessly misquote, especially as you do, from material that is hardly
likely to be available to hand for confirmation, to most readers, is a best,
irresponsible.

The complete quote, put in full, shines a rather more truthful light on the
matter:

"Surely then it need not be thought surprising, if following in the
footsteps of my venerated master, I have made it the chief aim of my
professorial life to provide facilities for the translation of our sacred
Scriptures into Sanskrit, and for the promotion of a better knowledge of the
religions and customs of India, as the best key to a knowledge of the
religious needs of our great Eastern Dependency."

Truth becomes even less distorted were it to be mentioned that he is not
even referring to his MW, but an earlier work.


Your are welcome to provide us with the incriminating evidence of any such
missionary positioning . . .


Pseud!


Eddie

Post by Nikolaj

Post by Eddie Hadley
All,
Please be so kind as to review a proposal of mine at
Proposal for a Public Domain Microsoft Windows Desktop Application
* The Monier Monier-Williams Sanskrit-English Dictionary
* Electronic format
* IAST Transliteration Scheme (Unicode Standardised Roman
Diacritics)
* A Microsoft .NET framework Desktop Application (XP SP2 and above)
* Memory resident
* Fully scrollable
* Fully hyperlinked cross references

Hi,
I am not very fond of MMW Dictionary. Of course it is the main and
probably the most complete Sanskrit dictionary, and therefore most
frequently used dictionary, but still.
1.) It is very old. Ancient. A lot of information in it should be
updated. ALL ENTRIES should have references to the Sanskrit Literature.
There are some doubtful entries or entries coming from literature that
one cannot verify (MMW's own notes and collections, various lexicons,
etc...), which should be corrected. Cognates should be expanded with
more languages (not just main western languages, but include other
relevant languages, for instance other Slavic languages, where they
differ from Russian, Indian languages, etc...) and updated according to
recent knowledge.
2.) The word order of the dictionary is very strange regarding verbal
roots and its derivates. Using hyperlinks the words could be organised
differently - correctly as they should be according to Sanskrit Alphabet.
3.) Last, but not least, MMW's main intention was to make, I quote from
his preface "... surely then it need not be thought surprising, if
following in the footsteps of my venerated master (Prof H. H. Wilson), I
have made it the chief aim of my professorial life to provide facilities
for the translation of out sacred Scriptures into Sanskrit ...", or with
other words one of the aim, the first and the main aim, of his
dictionary was Christian proselytism. Extremely irritating.
-------------
What I would like would be *a new* electronic dictionary. And not just
dictionary, but also an electronic Sanskrit Literature Corpus which
would include complete texts. All words should be marked with additional
morphological and syntactical information (and more if necessary - rSi,
devatA, chandas - author(s), dedication(s), metre(s), etc...) and the
dictionary should be compiled from the words of the texts included.
Hyperlinks should point in both ways, from text into the dictionary and
from dictionary into the various texts. There should be a capable search
facility available, which would allow to limit the searches to only
certain kind of literature, or a few works that the user is currently
interested in, etc... It should also allow to search words and compile
different lists (of words, verses) using the mentioned additional
information, including various inflected forms, or user's own groups of
forms using various criteria, etc...
It should probably have to be made in Unicode encoding which would allow
to mix various scripts (IATS, devanAgarI, Greek script is used for Greek
cognates in MMW, but Russian - he writes Slavonic - cognates are
transliterated into (a strange?) Roman alphabet, instead of been given
in Cyrillic). Some thought should also be given to the input of text.
There should probably be allowed to use more than one transliteration
for input, like IAST, HK, ITRANS...
Such a thing would be ideal. A new version of MMW would maybe also be
usable and it would be much quicker and easier to finish it, but all old
errors would still be there, and there would be nothing new. In the end
I don't see a lot of difference between such new version and the
existing MW Sanskrit Digital Dictionary.
Nik

[Nikolaj]

Eddie Hadley pravi:

First of all, I am just an amateur and even so Sanskrit has stopped
being my main interest a few years ago. I didn't study indology. I don't
know what's going on in the field (conferences etc...). So you can
freely ignore my remarks, if you want.

Post by Eddie Hadley
Yours is really a 'state of the nation' review, not quite of what I

am > proposing.

'State of the indology'? Maybe. That would be interesting and valuable
(I suppose to scholars and researchers as well, or even more, than to
other people). Just converting the dictionary into another format might
also have some use, but not much would be achieved.

Post by Eddie Hadley
Cologne have a project up and running, addressing the update/correction
issue.

The main point of my text was to emphasize that it would be nice to have
a corpus with the dictionary rather than only a dictionary. Plus all the
other features I mentioned, and probably people who work with Sanskrit
literature daily could think of many more features, which could be
implemented with modern technologies.

Post by Eddie Hadley
True, there are many manuscripts, yet to be identified, let alone
translated. But it is a task of no little magnitude. The resources of
the Government of the Indian sub-continent in co-operation with major
academic institutions round the globe are already harnessed to the
task.
And are even now being placed on-line.

On-line, but not into the dictionary. If a dictionary would be based on
the texts themselves, then adding one such manuscript could be done
easily. But all that is besides the point.

Post by Eddie Hadley
Sanskrit -is- an ancient language, not too many new works are
being composed in it in these days!

Well, Sanskrit isn't so dead as scholars would want to make it. For
instance:

- Cardona mentions quite a few works written in Sanskrit on the Paninian
grammar (picking one at random: bhAgIratha prasAda tripAThI:
dhAtv-artha-vijJAnam (1969) [On the meanings of roots]). Maybe there are
other fields where new works are being written in Sanskrit?

- I know there exist some media using Sanskrit (newspapers, radio, TV),
and also modern style grammars are written too, where new words are
being coined or older words are being given a new meanings (few
examples: dUradarzana - TV, kRSNaphalaka - blackboard, upanetra -
eyeglasses)

- There *are* some works written in Sanskrit from time to time by
various people. Not many, but still.

But that is also besides the point. What I see as the main point is
described above.

Post by Eddie Hadley
Views formed with eyes wide shut have little value.
Your argument, on a topic as potentially inflammatory are religious

Nonsense.

Post by Eddie Hadley
To carelessly misquote, especially as you do, from material that is
hardly likely to be available to hand for confirmation, to most readers,
is a best, irresponsible.
The complete quote, put in full, shines a rather more truthful light on
"Surely then it need not be thought surprising, if following in the
footsteps of my venerated master, I have made it the chief aim of my
professorial life to provide facilities for the translation of our
sacred Scriptures into Sanskrit, *and* for the promotion of a better
knowledge of the religions and customs of India, as the best key to a
knowledge of the religious needs of our great Eastern Dependency."

I didn't say that is it the *only* intention, but the first and the main
one. So I didn't distort anything. Issues of colonialism and native
people come only second.

Post by Eddie Hadley
Truth becomes even less distorted were it to be mentioned that he is not
even referring to his MW, but an earlier work.
Your are welcome to provide us with the incriminating evidence of any
such missionary positioning . . .

I would rather say that the first sentence here is the real distortion.
From what I can read in the introduction the main goal of the whole
work of many people and scholars (from more than one generation) in
preparing this dictionary was religious. The Chair itself was
established for this purpose: "its founder, Colonel Boden, stated most
explicitely in his will that the special object of his munificent
bequest was to promote the translation of the Scriputres into Sanskrit,
so as 'to enable his countrymen to procees in the conversion of the
natives of India to the Christian Religion.'"

The same view is again stated by Prof. Wilson ("he layed stress on what
he had done for 'the rendering of the Scripture Terms into the Sanskrit
language'") and by Monier-Williams. If you read the footnote to the text
you quote in full, you can read that "Rev. J. Wenger, translator of the
Bible into Sanskrit..." refers to the usage of "Professor
Monier-Williams' English and Sanskrit Dictionary" and not the earlier
work. The footnote then continues with "... The Rev. J. Parsons of
Benares, who has been engaged for some years past in preparing a new
Hindee version of the New Testament, has likewise derived material
assistance from Professor M.W.'s work. Indian missionaries generally owe
him a large debt of gratitude ...".

Now, I am not saying that MMW's dictionary, because of such motivation,
is less worthy from the scholarly point of view. It obviously isn't -
it's a good tool, with some problems. But the motivations why someone
does a certain work are also a part of the whole outcome, and (almost)
30 years after the publishing of Said's Orientalism, it's maybe time to
prepare a new, better work. In fact, in today's world I don't see any
justification for using a dictionary containing statements as I quoted
above - the only excuse is that a newer dictionary doesn't exist yet.

Nik

[Eddie Hadley]

Nikolaj,

Just converting the dictionary into another format might also have some use, but
not much would be achieved.

Anyone reading a statement such as the above, would be given to understand it as
it reads. It being all the information they have to go on.

But it is not quite the full picture is it?

It is a secondary feature, one of a number, isn't it? The distinguishing feature,
wherein its value, if any, resides, somehow seems to have got lost. Not even a
ellipse of its existence!

And the good Rev. J. Wenger, does indeed get quoted by the Professor - for a work
'Published ... in 1851'. You appear not to have noticed his (MW's) mention of it
as 'pioneering work', even though he highlights it in italic. I guess you simply
stopped reading there ... as there all is revealed . . .

And the 'First edition 1899' on the fly leaf, is in plain view.

Huh!

You views wouldn't even find currency as a used car salesman, let alone an elder
statesman.

PS.
There is a Mayor Brown, a dairy farmer, near here in the Vale of Glamorgan
in Welsh Wales. He has a very tidy side line selling bull-s**t, as fertilizer, you
understand - to our sworn enemies (at Rugby football, at least) our English
neighbours.

Now what made me think of that . . .

First of all, I am just an amateur and even so Sanskrit has stopped being my
main interest a few years ago. I didn't study indology. I don't know what's
going on in the field (conferences etc...). So you can freely ignore my remarks,
if you want.

Post by Eddie Hadley
Yours is really a 'state of the nation' review, not quite of what I

am > proposing.
'State of the indology'? Maybe. That would be interesting and valuable (I
suppose to scholars and researchers as well, or even more, than to other
people). Just converting the dictionary into another format might also have some
use, but not much would be achieved.

Post by Eddie Hadley
Cologne have a project up and running, addressing the update/correction issue.

The main point of my text was to emphasize that it would be nice to have a
corpus with the dictionary rather than only a dictionary. Plus all the other
features I mentioned, and probably people who work with Sanskrit literature
daily could think of many more features, which could be implemented with modern
technologies.

Post by Eddie Hadley
True, there are many manuscripts, yet to be identified, let alone translated.
But it is a task of no little magnitude. The resources of the Government of the
Indian sub-continent in co-operation with major academic institutions round the
globe are already harnessed to the
task.
And are even now being placed on-line.

On-line, but not into the dictionary. If a dictionary would be based on the
texts themselves, then adding one such manuscript could be done easily. But all
that is besides the point.

Post by Eddie Hadley
Sanskrit -is- an ancient language, not too many new works are
being composed in it in these days!

- Cardona mentions quite a few works written in Sanskrit on the Paninian grammar
(picking one at random: bhAgIratha prasAda tripAThI: dhAtv-artha-vijJAnam (1969)
[On the meanings of roots]). Maybe there are other fields where new works are
being written in Sanskrit?
- I know there exist some media using Sanskrit (newspapers, radio, TV), and also
modern style grammars are written too, where new words are being coined or older
words are being given a new meanings (few examples: dUradarzana - TV,
kRSNaphalaka - blackboard, upanetra - eyeglasses)
- There *are* some works written in Sanskrit from time to time by various
people. Not many, but still.
But that is also besides the point. What I see as the main point is described
above.

Post by Eddie Hadley
Views formed with eyes wide shut have little value.
Your argument, on a topic as potentially inflammatory are religious

Nonsense.

Post by Eddie Hadley
To carelessly misquote, especially as you do, from material that is hardly
likely to be available to hand for confirmation, to most readers, is a best,
irresponsible.
The complete quote, put in full, shines a rather more truthful light on the
"Surely then it need not be thought surprising, if following in the footsteps
of my venerated master, I have made it the chief aim of my professorial life to
provide facilities for the translation of our sacred Scriptures into Sanskrit,
*and* for the promotion of a better knowledge of the religions and customs of
India, as the best key to a knowledge of the religious needs of our great
Eastern Dependency."

I didn't say that is it the *only* intention, but the first and the main one. So
I didn't distort anything. Issues of colonialism and native people come only
second.

Post by Eddie Hadley
Truth becomes even less distorted were it to be mentioned that he is not even
referring to his MW, but an earlier work.
Your are welcome to provide us with the incriminating evidence of any
such missionary positioning . . .

I would rather say that the first sentence here is the real distortion. From
what I can read in the introduction the main goal of the whole work of many
people and scholars (from more than one generation) in preparing this dictionary
was religious. The Chair itself was established for this purpose: "its founder,
Colonel Boden, stated most explicitely in his will that the special object of
his munificent bequest was to promote the translation of the Scriputres into
Sanskrit, so as 'to enable his countrymen to procees in the conversion of the
natives of India to the Christian Religion.'"
The same view is again stated by Prof. Wilson ("he layed stress on what he had
done for 'the rendering of the Scripture Terms into the Sanskrit language'") and
by Monier-Williams. If you read the footnote to the text you quote in full, you
can read that "Rev. J. Wenger, translator of the Bible into Sanskrit..." refers
to the usage of "Professor Monier-Williams' English and Sanskrit Dictionary" and
not the earlier work. The footnote then continues with "... The Rev. J. Parsons
of Benares, who has been engaged for some years past in preparing a new Hindee
version of the New Testament, has likewise derived material assistance from
Professor M.W.'s work. Indian missionaries generally owe him a large debt of
gratitude ...".
Now, I am not saying that MMW's dictionary, because of such motivation, is less
worthy from the scholarly point of view. It obviously isn't - it's a good tool,
with some problems. But the motivations why someone does a certain work are also
a part of the whole outcome, and (almost) 30 years after the publishing of
Said's Orientalism, it's maybe time to prepare a new, better work. In fact, in
today's world I don't see any justification for using a dictionary containing
statements as I quoted above - the only excuse is that a newer dictionary
doesn't exist yet.
Nik

[Nikolaj]

You asked everyone to comment your proposal, so I commented it. I
firstly stated why I don't like with MMW's dictionary, what I see as its
problems, and then gave a my own proposal. Take it, take some part of
it, whatever. Regarding the last (religious) point I also believe that
any honest person will come to the same conclusion. You may not like it,
or you may think differently, but that is not my problem.

Post by Eddie Hadley

Just converting the dictionary into another format might also have
some use, but not much would be achieved.

Anyone reading a statement such as the above, would be given to
understand it as it reads. It being all the information they have
to go on.
But it is not quite the full picture is it?
It is a secondary feature, one of a number, isn't it? The distinguishing
feature, wherein its value, if any, resides, somehow seems to have got
lost. Not even a ellipse of its existence!

And what would be that distinguishing feature? I don't see it in the six
points you wrote.

There is already one such dictionary on-line (Sanskrit-French) at
http://sanskrit.inria.fr/DICO/1.html It is not MMW, but it functions
exactly as you propose. If that would be all, it would be the same as
the paper dictionary, except that you have linked references for easier
jumps between words of the dictionary. This is not a new feature. It can
be achieved in the current electronic dictionary (with the input of a
new word) and in the book (with turning pages or by clicking between the
scanned pages). It is *only* easier.

But compare Gérard's dictionary: if you click on a gender mark you get
the nominal paradigm for the word. Root class numbers are hyperlinked to
the complete conjugational paradigm of the verb. See? This is what I
mean by *new features*, not something old being done in a new way, but
something really new.

The next logical step for such a dictionary is to be based not on a
compiled list of words, but on the actual texts, where every usage
explained in the dictionary could be hyperlinked to the text(s) where it
is used, and vice-versa, the words in the texts would be linked to the
dictionary. With the inclusion of texts a whole range of new
possibilites emerges. Modular build, search capabilities, different
languages, etc...

You say, you didn't have this in mind. Yes I agree, and I know that such
a thing is much more difficult and complicated than to prepare an
already existing digitized dictionary as you propose. Still, I see that
as something which would be ideal, and which should be achieved some day.

Post by Eddie Hadley
Huh!
[bs deleted]

And as far as I am concerned, this is EOD.

Nik

[Eddie Hadley]

a.. The Monier Monier-Williams Sanskrit-English Dictionary
b.. Electronic format
c.. IAST Transliteration Scheme (Unicode Standardised Roman Diacritics)
d.. A Microsoft .NET framework Desktop Application (XP SP2 and above)
e.. Memory resident
f.. Fully scrollable
g.. Fully hyperlinked cross references

Post by Nikolaj
And what would be that distinguishing feature? I don't see it in the six
points you wrote.

You missed one Nikilaj!

Post by Nikolaj
It is not MMW, but it functions exactly as you propose.

No not -exactly- Nikolaj, please look with both eyes, and notice the liitle word
that makes the big difference:

-fully-

. . .I dispair of those with planks unto their eyes, for as my pearls of wisdom
are amongst hogs . . .

Post by Nikolaj
You say, you didn't have this in mind.

. . . for he puteth into their mouths, that which they speak not

Post by Nikolaj
Yes I agree, and I know that such a thing is much more difficult and complicated
than to prepare an already existing digitized dictionary as you propose.

- and he sayeth that I am thick

Post by Nikolaj
Still, I see that
as something which would be ideal, and which should be achieved some day.

- etc. etc.

Post by Nikolaj
And as far as I am concerned, this is EOD.

- and he goeth, for he is disgraced



Oh! Please Nikilaj! You must learn to read with your eyes open! Paradise is nigh
upon ye!


* * *

Ladies and gentlemen the bottom lines, yeah, verily the very bottom line - unseen
by those that have eyes, yet see not:

. . .

Moreover, the scrollability of e-data, harnesses the full potential inherent in
the design of the Monier-Williams, of determining the ground sense, of what at
first sight, invariably appears as a disparate collection of usages, that
accumulate to a word over the milleniums. The context, which better inform of the
individual usages, is often indicated, but is of limited value to those without a
well stocked library of scarce manuscripts.

*** There is scope here for linkage to such Works and Authors as become
increasingly available on-line . . . ***


Eddie

Do you like a good punch up guys?

A great big flaming red dragan takes on a dirty great dane for the grand
unification boxing championship of the world, here in Cardiff, at the famous
Millenium Stadium, just next month. Don't you miss it now . . .

[Madhu]

* "Eddie Hadley" <fc363b$5nk$1$***@news.demon.co.uk> :

| Unicode issues regarding Vedic accents etc. is a major item on the Agenda of
| The International Symposium on Sanskrit Computational Linguistics to take
| place next month (October 2007).

Would you be attending this? I'd appreciate it if you could post a
followup here on what transpired, and what the issues under discussion
were.

* From: <URL:http://www.sanskritdocuments.org/doc_veda/doc_veda.html>
... Unicode Standard 4.0 (2003) does not support accented Vedic
texts. Only two Vedic accents were defined by the Unicode
consortium, whereas approximate 50 Vedic accents/characters/ svaras
would be required for encoding the various Vedic texts. See Vedic
Code Set (vedic.pdf) in http://tdil.mit.gov.in/pchangeuni.htm and 29
Samaveda accents listed in http://www.sanskritweb.de/sans99sv.pdf.

The cited document (vedic.pdf) is dated Nov 2006. FWICT this
representation would not be sufficient for computationally processing
accents (in particular, to express rules of combination and in
decomposing).

II. On another note, Apte's Sanskrit English dictionary has long been
available from on the Web from
<URL:http://aa2411s.aa.tufs.ac.jp/~tjun/sktdic/> being the counterpart
to the English Sanskrit dictionary at the Cologne Digital Sanskrit
Dictionaries site you cited. In either case I have not found a
publically available digital text of the source.

Ideally I would like to have access to and process the digitized text
locally i.e. (not via the web or internet). At the same time, I'd like
to see the same texts available (corrected and updated) at a canonical
source from the internet. This distribution model works in software,
but I am not sure if either Gérard's or the Cologne texts allow for this
--- marked up texts are not available. Is Monier Williams the only
freely available text available? (I'd like to corrected if I'm mistaken
in my understanding of the situation)

--
Thanks
Madhu

[Eddie Hadley]

Madhu,

No, I don't like meetings. Jazz festivals, yes, meetings, no!

Follow it up here:

http://www-c.inria.fr/Internet/events/scientific-events/sanskrit-computational-linguistics/view?set_language=en

It is not the diacritic stuff as such, is it? The reading of Romanised Sanskrit it
is one thing - a single character, such as the a macron, is preferable to the
camel case, where you have capitals in the middle of a word.

However, it's the writing of the diacritics that is the problem. They are not a
single key stroke on most peoples keyboards. The best we can do is an on-screen
virtual keyboard, in mouse-click mode and a Unicode font such as Times Ext Roman.

Eddie

Post by Madhu
| Unicode issues regarding Vedic accents etc. is a major item on the Agenda of
| The International Symposium on Sanskrit Computational Linguistics to take
| place next month (October 2007).
Would you be attending this? I'd appreciate it if you could post a
followup here on what transpired, and what the issues under discussion
were.

. . .

Post by Madhu
Thanks
Madhu

[jivadas]

Post by Eddie Hadley
It is not the diacritic stuff as such, is it? The reading of Romanised Sanskrit it
is one thing - a single character, such as the a macron, is preferable to the
camel case, where you have capitals in the middle of a word.

Is that the worst fault of HK? The nasals can be complicatedly ugly
too: as <RzyazRGa> for that sexy monk Rishyashringa in Ramayana, who
became a <tajjJa>!

I do not use HK for its beauty, but because it works perfectly on my
Google Desktop, allowing me to search the Vasishtha as I translate it;
and at the same time to search every URL I have ever visited. I can
collate shlokas <zlokAH> entire or in part, and so on. Of course I can
do this only in HK.

I have found a converter device called DiCrunch [I'll post the URL
later} that converts between all the major Romanizations and Sanskrit
[as well as Oriya].

If you are making a proposal to MS, I suggest that you get them to
incorporate this App into it all.

I will have more to say about this interesting business after I do my
shopping.

x0x
jd

Post by Eddie Hadley
However, it's the writing of the diacritics that is the problem. They are not a
single key stroke on most peoples keyboards. The best we can do is an on-screen
virtual keyboard, in mouse-click mode and a Unicode font such as Times Ext Roman.
Eddie

Post by Madhu
| Unicode issues regarding Vedic accents etc. is a major item on the Agenda of
| The International Symposium on Sanskrit Computational Linguistics to take
| place next month (October 2007).
Would you be attending this? I'd appreciate it if you could post a
followup here on what transpired, and what the issues under discussion
were.

. . .

Post by Madhu
Thanks
Madhu- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

[Eddie Hadley]

Madhu,

Desktop dictionaries have been available for years, Bontes, Mahoney for the MW,
Cappeller . . .

The task of interpreting a Sanskrit 'word/phrase' is likely to remain very much
one of human labour for some time yet. The sandhi is the -big- problem, making for
much ambiguity, viz. Huet.

I faced a similar problem with hypertexting the Romanised Yoga Sutras with
attendant commentaries.
I needed to be able to mouse click on any word, and have a pop-up box appear, not
only carrying the corresponding entry from the MW dictionary, but also providing
the gender, person and case of substantives - very handy. I made much use of
regular expressions and declension table lookups as obtained from Coulson etc.,
'intelligently' extracting the inflection off the end of nouns and adjectives via
the tables... It works quite well, though it is not 100%, and I have shied away
from verbs - luckily, only two in the whole of the Yoga sutra!

It was done some years back, with HTML & Javascript, then, as speed became a
problem :-), moved over to C+. Now I am into C# .NET, - recommended! - but
finishing hypertexting the MW itself, now in .rtf format.

When it comes to Bhoja, where there is not very much digital stuff around, I have
resorted to paper and OCR Sanskrit scanners - the OCR I have is in German, so I
had first to translate that
into English with my schoolboy German. . .

. . . so you can see where my 'desktop MW' is coming from.

The source text must first be put into Romanized Sanskrit (CSX+ or Times Ext
Roman,Unicode). Then decomposed, partly - I have written a program, - manually .
. . marked up in .htm, so as to hyperlink my MW . . .

We all have the same problem, whatever the source text. I can't see computers
taking over all the chores just yet.

Regards

Eddie

Post by Madhu
| Unicode issues regarding Vedic accents etc. is a major item on the Agenda of
| The International Symposium on Sanskrit Computational Linguistics to take
| place next month (October 2007).
Would you be attending this? I'd appreciate it if you could post a
followup here on what transpired, and what the issues under discussion
were.
* From: <URL:http://www.sanskritdocuments.org/doc_veda/doc_veda.html>
... Unicode Standard 4.0 (2003) does not support accented Vedic
texts. Only two Vedic accents were defined by the Unicode
consortium, whereas approximate 50 Vedic accents/characters/ svaras
would be required for encoding the various Vedic texts. See Vedic
Code Set (vedic.pdf) in http://tdil.mit.gov.in/pchangeuni.htm and 29
Samaveda accents listed in http://www.sanskritweb.de/sans99sv.pdf.
The cited document (vedic.pdf) is dated Nov 2006. FWICT this
representation would not be sufficient for computationally processing
accents (in particular, to express rules of combination and in
decomposing).
II. On another note, Apte's Sanskrit English dictionary has long been
available from on the Web from
<URL:http://aa2411s.aa.tufs.ac.jp/~tjun/sktdic/> being the counterpart
to the English Sanskrit dictionary at the Cologne Digital Sanskrit
Dictionaries site you cited. In either case I have not found a
publically available digital text of the source.
Ideally I would like to have access to and process the digitized text
locally i.e. (not via the web or internet). At the same time, I'd like
to see the same texts available (corrected and updated) at a canonical
source from the internet. This distribution model works in software,
but I am not sure if either Gérard's or the Cologne texts allow for this
--- marked up texts are not available. Is Monier Williams the only
freely available text available? (I'd like to corrected if I'm mistaken
in my understanding of the situation)
--
Thanks
Madhu

[Eddie Hadley]

Madhu,

Post by Madhu
| The International Symposium on Sanskrit Computational Linguistics to take
| place next month (October 2007).
Would you be attending this? I'd appreciate it if you could post a
followup here on what transpired, and what the issues under discussion
were.

I have some information on the Symposium I have received from the co-chair, Gérard
Huet, which I pass on here:


"There will be a volume of the accepted papers at the Symposium, which
I am now editing. It will be available for the attendees in paper
form, as a proceedings volume. We shall print a small edition, and
there will be extra copies which we could mail to a few libraries or
interested individuals. But this document will also be available as a
freely downlodable document on the Web, in the durable Digital
Library HAL which INRIA shares with CNRS. Furthermore, the whole
proceedings, including the workshop sessions, will be video recorded
and post-edited ; if quality permits, it will be available in
streaming form on the Web."

So it looks as if we all will be well served.

Regards,

Eddie

[jivadas]

Post by Eddie Hadley
Nikolaj,
Yours is really a 'state of the nation' review, not quite of what I am
proposing.
Your argument, on a topic as potentially inflammatory are religious
To carelessly misquote, especially as you do, from material that is hardly
likely to be available to hand for confirmation, to most readers, is a best,
irresponsible.
The complete quote, put in full, shines a rather more truthful light on the
"Surely then it need not be thought surprising, if following in the
footsteps of my venerated master, I have made it the chief aim of my
professorial life to provide facilities for the translation of our sacred
Scriptures into Sanskrit, and for the promotion of a better knowledge of the
religions and customs of India, as the best key to a knowledge of the
religious needs of our great Eastern Dependency."
Truth becomes even less distorted were it to be mentioned that he is not
even referring to his MW, but an earlier work.

Let's face it, Sir Monier Monier-Williams was a Hypocrite. He was
lying through his teeth about his intentions on taking the Boden
Chair. Find me, please, one definition that does not reflect the
Classical Sanskritic or Vedic point of view.

Consider for example the Christian viewpoint toward his many examples
of "pudendum muliebris" or "membrum virile", vagina or penis, in those
ancient days!


More to come on this interesting matter, tomorrow.

x0x
jd

[Eddie Hadley]

jivadas/das-jiva.

Sex! At your age!
Religion, I would understand, though we'll all know that one in due course,
anyway.

In the meantime, more practical, would be politics - have you tried politics.

Unless of couse you want to discuss the wisdom/bullshit of the ancients of
Sanskrit.
There's plenty of both - but which is which? Now that would be worthwhile
spending time on over a glass or three down at the pub, right?

Eddie

[d***@gmail.com]

Post by Eddie Hadley
jivadas/das-jiva.
Sex! At your age!
Religion, I would understand, though we'll all know that one in due course,
anyway.
In the meantime, more practical, would be politics - have you tried politics.
Unless of couse you want to discuss the wisdom/bullshit of the ancients of
Sanskrit.
There's plenty of both - but which is which? Now that would be worthwhile
spending time on over a glass or three down at the pub, right?
Eddie

A little late to reply. I get lost in my work.
Are you home? If you are, do you have any thoughts about John Cleland's Sanscort?
He was (as well as writing pornography) a linguist of the latter Eighteenth Century CE., who introduced the notion of language families half-a-century before 1815, when "Indo-European" is first found in the OED.

Let me know if you're interested

[jivadas]

Post by Nikolaj

Post by Eddie Hadley
All,
Please be so kind as to review a proposal of mine at
Proposal for a Public Domain Microsoft Windows Desktop Application

I am not very fond of MMW Dictionary. Of course it is the main and
probably the most complete Sanskrit dictionary, and therefore most
frequently used dictionary, but still.
1.) It is very old. Ancient.

If Century 19 is "ancient", then Century 18 must be truly antique.

I agree, however, that some solecisms might be revised.
But It is without question the most complete--even to a fault. Its
only serious rivals are Apte's Dictionaries--but these are not online
except in one incomplete try, and we are talking online.

The glossary of my edition of Yoga-Vasishtha will be revision of MW
[with new material and webLinks].

Post by Nikolaj
A lot of information in it should be updated.

For example?,,,

Post by Nikolaj
ALL ENTRIES should have references to the Sanskrit Literature. <

Most do, often with verse citations, occasionally with quotes.
Unfortunately, Monier Monier-Williams is not at present in the office
to extend his Notes.

TBC

x0x
jd

Post by Nikolaj
There are some doubtful entries or entries coming from literature that
one cannot verify (MMW's own notes and collections, various lexicons,
etc...), which should be corrected. Cognates should be expanded with
more languages (not just main western languages, but include other
relevant languages, for instance other Slavic languages, where they
differ from Russian, Indian languages, etc...) and updated according to
recent knowledge.
2.) The word order of the dictionary is very strange regarding verbal
roots and its derivates. Using hyperlinks the words could be organised
differently - correctly as they should be according to Sanskrit Alphabet.
3.) Last, but not least, MMW's main intention was to make, I quote from
his preface "... surely then it need not be thought surprising, if
following in the footsteps of my venerated master (Prof H. H. Wilson), I
have made it the chief aim of my professorial life to provide facilities
for the translation of out sacred Scriptures into Sanskrit ...", or with
other words one of the aim, the first and the main aim, of his
dictionary was Christian proselytism. Extremely irritating.
-------------
What I would like would be *a new* electronic dictionary. And not just
dictionary, but also an electronic Sanskrit Literature Corpus which
would include complete texts. All words should be marked with additional
morphological and syntactical information (and more if necessary - rSi,
devatA, chandas - author(s), dedication(s), metre(s), etc...) and the
dictionary should be compiled from the words of the texts included.
Hyperlinks should point in both ways, from text into the dictionary and
from dictionary into the various texts. There should be a capable search
facility available, which would allow to limit the searches to only
certain kind of literature, or a few works that the user is currently
interested in, etc... It should also allow to search words and compile
different lists (of words, verses) using the mentioned additional
information, including various inflected forms, or user's own groups of
forms using various criteria, etc...
It should probably have to be made in Unicode encoding which would allow
to mix various scripts (IATS, devanAgarI, Greek script is used for Greek
cognates in MMW, but Russian - he writes Slavonic - cognates are
transliterated into (a strange?) Roman alphabet, instead of been given
in Cyrillic). Some thought should also be given to the input of text.
There should probably be allowed to use more than one transliteration
for input, like IAST, HK, ITRANS...
Such a thing would be ideal. A new version of MMW would maybe also be
usable and it would be much quicker and easier to finish it, but all old
errors would still be there, and there would be nothing new. In the end
I don't see a lot of difference between such new version and the
existing MW Sanskrit Digital Dictionary.
Nik