GlossaryTool

Introduction

The Glossary Tool is a codebase which allows creating and maintaining and most of all using multilingual topic-specific lexicons. It is meant as a quick reference extension to the TranslationTool but - once it becomes mature - may also be a free source of knowledge to the general public.

Definitions

• Lexicon: A glossary of terms and expressions relating to a particular topic, i.e. "global warming". (lupita fitzcarraldo)
• Glosary: A glossary (greek glossa: tongue, language; latin: glossarion: "little word" or "strange word needing explanations" and glossarium: "collection of sayings") is a list of words with explanations that defines the meaning of words that need explanations. (translated from Glossar (German Wikipedia)

Requirements / Feature Requests

• Words / Expressions
  • consist of one or more words (maximum length 30 characters?)
  • multiple words are supported (of course)
  • the number of words is extendible (of course)
  • are available in one or more (rather more) languages
  • are linkable to one or more (rather more) topics
  • are searchable

• Topics
  • consist of one or more words (maximum length 30 characters?)
  • multiple topics are supported (of course)
  • the number of topics is extendible (of course)
  • are available in one or more (rather more) languages
  • are linkable to one or more (rather more) words
  • are linkable to one or more (rather more) other topics
  • are searchable

• Languages
  • consist of one or more words (maximum length 15 characters?)
  • multiple languages are supported (of course)
  • the number of languages is extendible
  • are linkable to one or more (rather more) words
  • are linkable to one or more (rather more) topics

• User Interface (Website)
  • available in multiple languages
  • available in multiple or a single common-for-all character encoding(s) (UTF-8?)

Proposals for Implementation

Carlos Olmos' Approach

Structurization

• Hierarchical structure
• Relational structure

Importable Contents

• Middle East conflict (lupita fitzcarraldo)
• Agriculture & Breeding (deyanira)
• Biotechnology (deyanira)
• Legal Terms (deyanira)
• International Trade (deyanira)
• FTAA (deyanira)

-- AlsteR - 03 Nov 2004