Neil Ashton @nmashton@social.coop

Boosting @minh81@twitter.com:

***** U R G E N T E ***** “RAICES needs volunteer translators: "who speak Meso-American indigenous languages (eg, zapotec, nahua, ma'am, quich'e, maya, mixe, mixteco--not Spanish). Don't need to be in Texas, or even in the US. They can translate remotely." volunteer@raicestexas.org

#zapotec #nahua #mam #quiche #maya #mixe #mixteco #mesoamerica

Introducing myself a little to the #socialcoop set:

I work as a web developer for a (not currently cooperative) consultancy in Durham, North Carolina that specializes in #Django.

My education was in linguistics. I'm interested in building digital tools for under-resourced languages (currently esp. #Nahuatl).

I try to be a faithful Quaker, to #organizethesouth, and to be a good parent to my two kids—one way or another, my being here is related to all of those goals.

I'd like to get some Spanish-language books to practice my reading skills and vocab. Any recommendations?

Looking especially for Latin American books on: communist (or other revolutionary) historiography and theory; Indigenous identity and struggle; liberation theology.

re last two toots: sorry to jerk y'all around by circulating that request and then retracting it, but having had my attention called to these issues which in my ignorance of language justice work generally and the work of Indigenous organizations on interpretation specifically, I feel obliged to do so.

"Amigxs, les pido que por favor dejen de compartir la publicación de RAÍCES que pide intérpretes voluntarixs que hablan lenguas indígenas. … RAÍCES ya está coordinándose con las organizaciones indígenas que están listas para proporcionar intérpretes legales capacitados. Quiero animarles a seguir con eso en lugar de enviar más voluntarixs bilingües bien intencionadxs pero sin capacitación."

https://www.facebook.com/alenamarie80/posts/10155398621806373

"Friends, I urge you to please stop sharing the RAÍCES call for volunteer interpreters who speak Indigenous languages. … RAÍCES is now coordinating with the Indigenous organizations who are there and ready to provide qualified legal interpreters—let's encourage that rather than sending more well-meaning but untrained bilingual volunteers."

https://www.facebook.com/alenamarie80/posts/10155398621806373

#translation platform question:

What good F/OSS web platforms are out there for coordinating volunteer translation of short texts (on the scale of brief conversations or even individual utterances)?

Per my recent toots, there’s an urgent need for translation of Mesoamerican Indigenous languages. Some of that translation will be remote. I’m betting it’d reduce everyone’s stress and labor to have some lightweight infrastructure in place to facilitate that work. But what?

What's been happening in Anatolian linguistics and philology lately? Any bold new theories about #Hittite? How about the minor languages: #Lycian, #Lydian, #Carian? Anything new to say about #Luwian? (Really busting out some underused hashtags here.)

**** U R G E N T E ****

RAICES necessita traductores voluntarios que hablan las lenguas mesoamericanas indígenas (#zapotec, #nahua, #man, #quiche #kichee, #maya, #mixe, y #mixteco). No es necessario que usted esté en Tejas o en los EEUU. Puede traducir remotamente.

volunteer@raicestexas.org

[via @peacefulwrrior@twitter, @minh81@twitter]

Boosting @minh81@twitter.com:

***** U R G E N T E ***** “RAICES needs volunteer translators: "who speak Meso-American indigenous languages (eg, zapotec, nahua, ma'am, quich'e, maya, mixe, mixteco--not Spanish). Don't need to be in Texas, or even in the US. They can translate remotely." volunteer@raicestexas.org

#zapotec #nahua #mam #quiche #maya #mixe #mixteco #mesoamerica

Many #coop success stories I've read about seem to be about taking root in a community and meeting needs that aren't going away anytime soon: food, houses, childcare, etc.

Can #techcoops ever follow that model? Most tech work uses ephemeral tools to meet transient needs, and tech firms are rootless by default. Are there any meaningful generalizations we can draw from the exceptions?

Leah Velleman’s great analysis of why doing finite state natural language grammar engineering with existing tools can be rough: http://www.velleman.org/posts/fstssuck.html

I was pleased to learn there about Pynini, a Python library for specifying FSTs (which just by virtue of being a Python library solves many of the problems): http://www.opengrm.org/twiki/bin/view/GRM/Pynini