I pity my markers.

And here it is, in case anyone cares: Learning Named Entity Recognition from Wikipedia.

And now, I am reborn. What to do with myself? So much to do with myself. But at least I have time to work it out… =)

I borrow the example text used in one reporting blog:

משטרת גרמניה עצרה שני צעירים בחשד שהתכוונו לבצע פיגוע במטוס של חברת התעופה ההולנדית קיי-אל-אם. כוחות משטרת גרמניה פשטו על המטוס שחנה בשדה התעופה בקלן, זמן קצר לפני שהמריא בחזרה להולנד והוציאו ממנו את שני הצעירים, אזרח גרמני יליד סומליה בן 24 ואזרח סומליה בן 23.

Google Translate says:

German police arrested two youths suspected Shaatcwano an attack on the plane of Dutch airline Kay - to - if. German police forces raided the plane parked at the airport Cologne, shortly before Smria Leclnde back and took him to the two young men, a German citizen born in Somalia 24 Uezarh Somalia age 23.

There are a number of interesting things here:

Assuming something is a proper name if it can’t otherwise be understood is quite a normal approach. But it’s unusual that Google has particular trouble with “שהתכוונו”, “שהמריא” and “ואזרח”, which I don’t consider particularly uncommon words. These, and the messed up “להולנד” all have the common feature of attached prefixes (proclitics), and Google gets it right for all but “המריא” when these are removed. Obviously their word segmentation systems could be improved, or could be adjusted so that if the end system resorts to considering it a proper noun, it might go back and check whether there were some proclitics it failed to lop off. In practice, implementing such a feedback loop may not be worthwhile if the system wants to be fast.

Go take a look at the proper names it forms. It puts some funny letters in there, transliterating:

• ה ([h]) as nothing (which a lot of Israelis do, but I’m guessing that the system is being hugely biased by the silent הs at the ends of many female names);
• ו ([v]) as “w”, maybe because “w” always translates to Hebrew in names as ו, but it makes Google look very academic (or Iraqi/Yemenite) to transliterate the vavs in words as waws.
• כ ([k]) becomes “c”, but so does some non-existant letter in להולנד! What’s going on there?
• ח (usu. [x]) becomes “h” (rather than “ch” or “kh”), but I guess it is only ever found when transliterating Arabic names, and Ahmed is more common than Achmed.
• The vowels are also interesting. Especially the spurious “e” on the end of להולנד, but it’s already clear that it’s done a strange job on that one.

Kay - to - if (KLM) is obviously entertaining, but there’s not really much to say about it (except that apparently they split tokens on hyphens).

The most interesting phrase translation is “and took him to the two young men” from “והוציאו ממנו את שני הצעירים”. It would appear as if they took the ו on the end of והוציאו as referring to the object (והוציאוֹ) rather than the subject (והוציאוּ), but seeing as the former is quite rare in contemporary written Hebrew, this may mean they have a wide variety of texts from various ages. And then ממנו seems to disappear altogether. So maybe I’ve just misinterpreted how the system makes a mistake. At the end of the day, the system is all numbers, so no one can really be certain how it made the mistake…

One of the few other online Hebrew-English translation services is Reverso:

A police of Germany stopped two young on suspicion that meant to execute an attack in the airplane of the Dutch airline KAY but them. Forces a police of Germany spreaded on the airplane that parked in the airfield Bkln, a short time before took Off back/in return to Holland and withdrew from him you two the young, German born citizen Somalia ben 24 and citizen Somalia ben23.

Comparing to this translation, we see that Reverso generally does a better job of splitting off proclitics and so makes less apparent mistakes. But its grammar is certainly much poorer, both in English and in Hebrew, thinking for instance that “צעירים” should be understood as an adjective rather than a noun; and that one makes an attack in a plane rather than on it; or that the singular משטרת should be translated “a police”; or that “את” is better translated “you” than as a direct-object marker. Compare also Google’s handling of the compound noun phrase “כוחות משטרת גרמניה” as “German police forces” rather than “Forces a police of Germany”. Also interesting is Reverso’s offering of a choice for בחזרה as “back/in return”.

Overall, while reverso handles word segmentation somewhat better, Google has a much more fluid grammar and chooses more appropriate words in translation.

I haven’t tried translating the other direction (English to Hebrew) yet, or any other combination of languages where I would be under-qualified. I leave that as an exercise to the reader.

And no, they don’t do Yiddish yet. Real Soon Now.

Yes, it’s been a long time. Yes, I won’t be talking much here till November. Shana tova anyway! Enjoy translating your New Year cards from strange Israeli rellies…

1. The one that does not challenge his beliefs
2. The one that challenges and finds proofs to support his beliefs
3. The one that challenges, fails to prove, and still believes

The tough question is: which is the biggest fool?

Tom Cruise → 1962 births → 1960s births → 20th century births → Births by year → People → Humans → Apes → Primates → Mammals → Vertebrates → Chordates → Animals → Eukaryotes → Organisms → Life → Core issues in ethics → Ethics → Branches of philosophy → Philosophy → Belief → Spirituality → Human behaviour → Behaviour → Branches of psychology → Psychology → Interdisciplinary fields → Academic disciplines → Academia → Education → Personal development → Personal life → Self → Metaphysics → Reality → Philosophical concepts → Philosophical terminology → Terminology → Vocabulary → Language → Communication → Social psychology → Social philosophy → Philosophical movements → Movements → Ideologies → Epistemology → Philosophy of science → Analytic philosophy → 20th century philosophy → 20th century → 2nd millenium → Millenia → Years → Chronology → Measurement → Scientific observation → Data collection → Data management → Computer data → Computer storage → Computer memory → Digital media → Digital technology → Electronics → Electromagnetism → Special relativity → Relativity → Theoretical physics → Theories → …

And yes, this isn’t completely irrelevant. It relates to my honours research work. It means that the Wikipedia category hierarchy is only useful as a folksonomy, or perhaps only for a very small hierarchical depth beneath each article…

There is no q in “Al-Naqba”. The Arabic spelling includes the equivalent of a Hebrew kaf, not their quf.

It seems ‘q’ is used, often by Jewish sources, to Arabise the word and make it seem more foreign and distasteful.

Even the spellings of words can express one’s biases, just as “Moslem”, once an accepted variant, is now considered more derogatory than “Muslim”.

The AJN should utilise the more neutral and accurate spellings, and write articles on “Nakba” rather than “Naqba”.

The printed letter stops after the second paragraph, which I maybe should have made more clear: I do not accuse the Jewish press of a conspiracy to use a stigmatised spelling variant. Language is more subtle and subconscious than that.

I try not to dictate others’ language use. In the case of a newspaper, though, there are always editorial style guides, and I wanted to point out two factors in the spelling of this word:

1. Phonology: there is a letter q in Arabic, but it’s not used in the word “nakba”.
2. Sociolinguistics: people have a choice to use “nakba” or “naqba” as both are found in the English press (according to Google in about 10:1 ratio). They may actually use the latter because they perceive it as a more “authentic” transliteration. Of course, it is not. On the other hand, it does make the word look more foreign, and so its use carries some pre-conceived “Arab” feeling that makes the word no longer neutral.

Of course, the word is naturally not a neutral word, whichever way it is spelt. People will often react to it either with distate or with pride. Nonetheless, it shouldn’t be spelt in the “unbiased press” in a way that shows one’s side and one’s ignorance more than necessary.

Not only do I have to work out the tune, but there seem to be a variety of texts for the purpose. This chart compares a few samples. Any bits people particularly like or don’t like??

• Is God a dweller on high, or a father to orphans?
• Should God procure space upon or under the wings of His presence?
• Do we mourn “6 million Jews”, or “our brothers, Children of Israel”, or “multitudes of thousands of Israel”, or the “holy and pure”?
• Do we specify “men, women and children”?
• Do we state that their death was “in the sanctification of God’s Name”?
• What different means of death should we list?
• Do we name the holocaust, or list the camps, or mention Germans, or Nazis, or that their name should be erased?
• Do we give attribution to our prayer for them, or to our charity on their behalf?
• Do we mention that among them were the righteous and learned?
• And why is יום pluralised irregularly as ימין when it follows the word קץ?

Each and every time he found a word that piqued his interest he wrote it down, in tiny, almost microscopic letters, in its proper position on the eight-page quire he had made. The unique manner of his procedure was soon to become a hallmark of Minor’s astonishing accuracy and eye for detail.

I used to write in tiny, almost microscopic letters. It was actually somewhat more legible than my usual scrawl.

I never wrote any entries for a dictionary, though, which is the subject of this book: a man with paranoid schitzophrenia who made an enormous contribution to the Oxford English Dictionary from his padded cell. The book also uses this as a channel through which to marvel at the creation of the OED, whose concept of popular collaboration, along with its “complete” historical review of the English language, had been revolutionary and extraordinary (and in many ways still is). One could say it was really Dictionary 2.0.

Yes, you might see parallel’s to our contemporary grand collaboration, Wikipedia (which I have contributed to). Though it is much more based around consensus (or it would like to be) than editorial subtleties, and is a little more post-modern than to be concerned with extactitudes on some topics. And there is also an important immediacy factor playing a role in modern (espeically collaborative) media that wasn’t there before. And of course the monstrosity of Wikipedia brings me back to my honours work, which really I should be doing right about now…

So I guess even with a poor effort from myself, I have to tag. (For the tagged, take 6-8th sentences of p. 123 of nearest book, discuss and pass on as per meme.) I’m curious to hear what Alicia and Eve are reading in their respective corners of Asia. And Frikle has good literature. And DLC might find an interesting word to talk about on the 123rd page of some book. And, why not, my brother. See if he has the time for books at the moment…

Yay. My first not-so-viral meme over and done with!

Pick up the nearest book of 123 pages or more. (No cheating!)
Find Page 123.
Find the first 5 sentences.
Post the next 3 sentences.
Tag 5 people.

Now for him this meant not only quoting from Waltke and O’Connor’s, An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax, but then discussing the fascinating notion of honorific plurals in Biblical Hebrew (among things).

Not all of us keep quite as neat a desk as Simon, though.

Mine is packed with relics from various moments of the past months of my life, as well as long before that, and some quite useless things indeed. Some day I’ll clean it. (My desk at uni is cleaner, but still piled with papers left by its last occupant!)

Now, the nearest book to me happens to be the university diary I don’t use. While it has more than 123 pages, it doesn’t number them, so I’m defaulting to the second-nearest book, which is The Surgeon of Crowthorne by Simon Winchester.

And thus, after such a long prologue, I’m going to cop out. I’m not up to page 123 yet, and I don’t intend to tell you what it says there until I am. So this post is more an IOU than anything. (If you’re in suspense and want to speed up the reading process, you could try poisoning my food with laxatives.)

Trudi told me he was everywhere. But it was hard to avoid a full-page in Honi Soit…