LINGUIST List 3.657

Fri 28 Aug 1992

Qs: NLP on Mac; Arabic Numerals; Learning Reading

Editor for this issue: <>

Directory

1. , NLP on MAC
2. Mark Hansell/ Mai Hansheng, Query: Arabic numerals
3. Melody Sutton, "Whole Language" Learning

Dear Linguist readers,

I have a query related to Macintosh based NLP software. I would like to
know what there is available as stable commercial software packages on
the Mac platform w.r.t. Computer aided Translation tools:

	*Termtracers - Termbanks - Dictionary tools
	*Existing monolingual and bilingual dictionaries
	*Translator's workstations
	*Text version management tools
	*Multilingual Word Processing / DTP packages (i.e. including
	 Russian and Japanese)

Opinions from end-users of such packages are especially welcome.

A great many thanks,

Jan Provoost
Centre for Computational Linguistics
Maria-Theresiastraat, 21
B-3000 Leuven (Belgium)

Tel: +32-16-285085
E-mail: janet.kuleuven.ac.be
Fax: +32-16-285025

I'm doing research on writing systems, and have gotten particularly interested
in the mixing of Arabic numerals with other systems. Does anyone know of any
writing system with a wide range of functions (i.e. not limited to liturgical
or other specialized functions) that NEVER usues Arabic numerals? Is there any
place in the world that has mathematics textbooks containing no Arabic
numerals? Please send your observations and/or references directly to me at
this e-mail address, I'll post a summary if there's widespread interest.
Thanks.

Mark Hansell
Dept. of Asian Languages
Carleton College
Northfield, MN 55057 USA
mhansellcarleton.edu

My niece just completed the 1st grade at an experimental school
in Northern California. Her teachers have adopted a "whole
language" approach to reading. From what I can gather, this
means something like trying to get the kids to ACQUIRE reading
skills rather than memorize rules of phonics or "i before e
except after c" type rules. This philosophy seems to apply to
their writing skills as well. While it may be good to give up
making kids fit English spelling into a small set of rules (and
a large set of exceptions!), it seems to me that reading and
writing are learned skills, not acquired like spoken or signed
language. Does anyone out there have an informed opinion on
such matters? Just curious.

Thanks!
Melody Sutton
UCLA