Dravidian languages
The Semetic languages (sem) constitute a group of related languages and a branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family. Spoken by more than 470 million people throughout North Africa and Southwest Asia, the most widely spoken Semetic languages are Arabic, Maltese, Hebrew, Amharic, and Tigrigna.
The master plan involves generating independent finite-state transducers for each language, and then making individual dictionaries and transfer rules for every pair. The current status of these goals is listed below.
Status
The ultimate goal is to have multi-purposable transducers for a variety of Semetic languages. These can then be paired for X→Y translation with the addition of a CG for language X and transfer rules / dictionary for the pair X→Y. Below is listed development progress for each language's transducers and dictionary pairs.
Transducers
Once a transducer has ~80% coverage on a range of medium-large corpora we can say it is "working". Over 90% and it can be considered to be "production".
| name | language | native name | ISO 639 | formalism | state | stems | paradigms | coverage | location | primary authors | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| -2 | -3 | ||||||||||
apertium-heb
|
Hebrew | עִבְרִית | he
|
heb
|
lttoolbox | development | apertium-ara-heb (incubator) | missmaryx | |||
apertium-mlt
|
Maltese | Malti | mt
|
mlt
|
lttoolbox | development | 7,371 | 758 | apertium-mlt (languages) | Fran, Unhammer, Fronczak | |
apertium-ara
|
Arabic | العربية | ar
|
ara
|
lttoolbox | development | apertium-ara-heb (incubator) | missmaryx | |||
Existing language pairs
Text in italic denotes language pairs under development / in the incubator. Regular text denotes a functioning language pair in staging, while text in bold denotes a stable well-working language pair in trunk.
| mlt | heb | ara | |
|---|---|---|---|
| mlt | - | mt-he |
mt-ar |
| heb | mt-he |
- | ara-heb |
| ara | mt-ar |
ara-heb |
- |
| eng | en-mt |
||
| epo | eo-he |
Semetic languages by subgroup
There are six fairly uncontroversial nodes within the Semitic languages:
- East Semitic languages: Akkadian, Eblaite (extinct)
- Central Semitic languages
- Northwest Semitic languages: Aramaic, Canaanite languages, Hebrew
- Arabic languages: Classical Arabic, Standard Arabic, Maltese, etc.
- South Semitic languages
- Western: Ethiopic languages (Amharic, Tigrinya, etc.) and Old South Arabian languages (Sabaean, Minaean, Qatabānian, Ḥaḑramitic, etc.)
- Eastern: Modern South Arabian languages (Bathari, Harsusi, Hobyót, Mehri, Shehri, Soqotri)
Samples
Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
| Language | Text |
|---|---|
| Arabic | يولد جميع الناس أحرارًا متساوين في الكرامة والحقوق. وقد وهبوا عقلاً وضميرًا وعليهم أن يعامل بعضهم بعضًا بروح الإخاء. |
| Maltese | Il-bnedmin kollha jitwieldu ħielsa u ugwali fid-dinjità u d-drittijiet. Huma mogħnija bir-raġuni u bil-kuxjenza u għandhom iġibu ruħhom ma’ xulxin bi spirtu ta’ aħwa. |
| Hebrew | כל בני אדם נולדו בני חורין ושווים בערכם ובזכויותיהם. כולם חוננו בתבונה ובמצפון, לפיכך חובה עליהם לנהוג איש ברעהו ברוח של אחוה. |
| Amharic | የሰው፡ልጅ፡ሁሉ፡ሲወለድ፡ነጻና፡በክብርና፡በመብትም፡እኩልነት፡ያለው፡ነው።፡የተፈጥሮ፡ማስተዋልና፡ሕሊና፡ስላለው፡አንዱ፡ሌላውን፡በወንድማማችነት፡መንፈስ፡መመልከት፡ይገባዋል። |
| Tigrigna | ብመንፅር ክብርን መሰልን ኩሎም ሰባት እንትውለዱ ነፃን ማዕሪን እዮም፡፡ ምስትውዓልን ሕልናን ዝተዓደሎም ብምዃኖም ንሕድሕዶም ብሕውነታዊ መንፈስ ክተሓላለዩ ኦለዎም፡፡ |
Vulnerability
This table summarizes the vulnerability of various Semetic languages. Data is derived from the ‘Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger, © UNESCO, http://www.unesco.org/culture/languages-atlas’ and Ethnologue.
This article uses material from the Wikipedia article "Semetic languages", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.
