RE: CleverKeys, dictionary.com and "programmatically located"

hi,

> Language questions:
> 1. Are there similar tools and dictionaries that are 
> freely available in other languages?

i can't rule out that there are arabic ones because there has been an
increase in online participation lately (at least in egypt) but i have
not been able to find any by searching and by asking around.


> 2. Assuming there are similar tools for Dutch, how 
> would the results differ for Dutch words that are 
> aggregates of words? As with idioms, will tools 
> look for the meaning of each separate word?

fyi, german is also an "aggregate" language and the lookups seem to work
quite well. "liebesbrief" is correctly separated into "love letter"
while "schreibtisch" (writing table) is correctly kept as "desk" and not
separated.


> 3.  What about Japanese?  Hebrew? Spanish? Arabic?  
> German? French?  Are there similar tools for these 
> languages?  What issues would tools have in other 
> languages?

looking up single arabic words in a dictionary or even for translation
is not a difficult issue. but in a context, for example grammar
checkers, the tools have a lot of difficulties due to the built up of
the language.


> 4. If automatic lookup of words works for some 
> languages and not others, how do we create 
> guidelines that will apply across languages?

don't know. is automatic lookup available on all user agents? at the
hotel i had webTV and the browser did not even accept cookies or work
with https...


> 5. If the tools are possible, but not available 
> today, do we write "lowest common denominator" 
> guidelines that apply across all languages, or 
> do we have different guidelines depending on 
> tools available today?

how about: if the authors can identify tools and make them available to
the users (either by user agent support or by providing links to the
tools) then they have fulfilled the guideline, if there are no tools
available (or the tools do not provide sufficient quality) then they
should provide a glossary for at least the keywords.

of course judging the quality of the tools as well as determining the
keywords will not be something easily testable but this might still be a
better approach than lowering the threshold for all languages.


> 6. Is user agent support a sufficient technique?

no, i don't think so. as user agents progress and support more
accessibility they will deprecate some checkpoints or guidelines but in
my opinion this feature has not yet matured in enough user agents.

regards,
  shadi

Received on Tuesday, 23 March 2004 11:30:23 UTC