Re: [aymara] Aymara and Western Culture

["Laura Jones" <lmjones@xxxxxxx>]

Well, well, well!  Mr. Beesley appears rather more tractable than at first
appeared.  Sorry I was so rude to you, Ken.  On the other hand I must warn
you against attributing religious affiliations and motivations to people
when your information is - at best - second hand.  But as of now all is
forgiven and forgotten, only please just don't do it again.  I am drawing up
a proposal for a machine translation project using Aymara as a transitional
megalanguage, based on my Logos experience.  (Another thing, Ken, I must
warn you that I have very thin skin and very high blood pressure which I am
currently trying to get lowered, and I really do not like to be talked down
to.  Actually, I think it could be a useful spiritual discipline for you to
make the effort to show some respect for people of age - I will be 70 in
less than a month - and considerable experience in languages and in machine
translation.)  So I am drawing up a proposal to use Aymara in this way,
since Logos was and is so successful, and since I was one of the main
architects of it, I think you can safely assume that my proposal will be
eminently feasible.  If there is a Bible already done in Aymara this would
be pure gold, as we could use it as the transitional document to be used in
the manner of the Hovy-style translation system to be generated by the
computer itself.  And, Ken dear, please also do not tell me I did not
correctly hear or understand what Prof. Hovy told me.  They don't even
pretend that this manner of generating a system has very sophisticated
grammatical resolution.  This is not always necessary, after all.  I have
used computer systems out there which were quite elementary, one that I had
was German, the software only cost about $25, at least compared to Logos it
was primitive in the extreme, but quite serviceable for, say a businessman.
Currently I have on my computer a Russian translation system. While I know
how Russian is structured, and can use the language, I read it rather slowly
so this way I can speed read Russian articles to get information that is of
value to me.  I don't know how much it cost because you know the Russians
pirate these kinds of things.  But, again, although linguistically certainly
imperfect (although all this discussion on Aymara and western culture has
for all intents and purposes deprived the word "perfect" of any meaning I
nevertheless take the liberty of using it because I don't know of a
substitute, perhaps our work will restore the proper meaning of linguistic
perfection) so this  Russian system is primitive, but eminently useful to
me, the Russians do some very interesting thinking.  So you can let me know,
Ken, if on his basis you think tentatively that some form of collaboration
might eventually be possible once we get things set up and funded.  A lot of
people find me too intractable to deal with, if you do, fine, no problem, I
deal with this all the time, it's one of the reasons my blood pressure is so
high.  But I am *very* successful at what I do, and I have friends in *very*
high places.  None of them are Jesuits, but if you look at the e-mail I sent
to my usual chat group you will see the name "Father Timothy Radcliffe".  He
is the Master General of the Dominican Order (I don't know if you are aware
that there is a traditional rivalry between the Jesuits and Domicans; our
community was Dominican, and even though I am Russian Orthodox, I am still
recognized by the Dominicans as a Dominican tertiary), anyhow, Fr. Radcliffe
is my direct e-mail connection to Pope John Paul.  Regards to all, Laura
----- Original Message -----
From: Ken Beesley <Ken.Beesley@xrce.xerox.com>
To: <aymaralist@aymara.org>
Sent: Friday, February 23, 2001 4:49 AM
Subject: RE: [aymara] Aymara and Western Culture


>
> > Resent-Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 15:59:57 -0500
> > X-Authentication-Warning: host4.the-web-host.com: arpasi set sender to
> aymaralist-request@aymara.org using -f
> > From: "Alex Condori" <lista2@iname.com>
>
> > > I'm from a religious background myself (Mormon) and I worked
> > > for a company (ALPS, later ALPNET) that, though quite secular itself,
> > > grew out of an earlier machine-translation project at Brigham Young
> > > University that had definite religious motivation.
> >
> > Did not the Brigham Young University develop a
> > proficiency test on aymara for foreigners, or
> > something alike?
>
> Alex,
>
> At one time, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
> (Mormons) sent missionaries to the Aymaras.  And they
> translated some books into the language.  I do not know if they
> are still active in this area.  I'll try to find out.  I don't
> know anything about a proficiency test.
>
>
> >
> > > So I am sincerely interested in religious motivations behind
> > > a variety of machine-translation projects.
> >
> > Well, perhaps we are far from reliable Bible
> > machine-translations yet (I think that a man-made
> > Book of Mormon translation is available in
> > Aymara, am I right?)
>
> I've seen a partial translation, in the old CALA orthography.
>
> Ken
>
>
>
> **********************************************************************
> Kenneth R. Beesley ken.beesley@xrce.xerox.com
> Xerox Research Centre Europe    Tel from France:    04  76 61 50 64
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>
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> **********************************************************************
>
>