LINGUIST List 6.1711

Thu Dec 7 1995

Qs: Celtic in North America, Cluster Analysis, MT software

Editor for this issue: Ljuba Veselinova <lveselinemunix.emich.edu>

Directory

1. Hartmut Haberland, Celtic in North America?
2. "* Deumert, A, Ana, Ms", cluster analysis
3. Helen Karn, Q: English/German MT software

In the German press (Berliner Morgenpost of November 26, 1995) reports
have appered that somebody has found an American Indian language in
North Dakota, called Mandan, which at least in its lexicon and
according to this report has a great deal of resemblance with Modern
Welsh (which again is taken as part of a proof that the Welsh were in
North America in 1170). The resemblances listed in the article are

Welsh		Mandan		gloss
prydferth	prydfa		beautiful
achyfi		akeiwi		repulsive
dwr		duah		water
llaeth		fa"hth		milk
cwm		kum		valley
buwch		buch		cow
telyn		tefyn		harp

(I have not checked the Welsh items. The glosses are re-translated
from German. The Ethnologe (at www.sil.org) lists Mandan as a Siouan
language with 6 remaining speakers.)

Does anybody know anything about this here?

Dear Linguists,

I like to analyse some historical data with the help of a cluster
analysis program. Are cluster analysis programs which are suitable for
linguistic research available on the internet. i.e. is it possible to
download such a program? If not, does anyone know where I can order a
cluster analysis program (if possible + manual)? Thank you Ana
Deumert Department of Linguistics University of Cape Town South Africa

[Please reply to pkarnaccess.digex.net. Thanks. Helen Karn]

I am making this query for my brother-in-law and asking my daughter,
who is a linguist, to post it to the List. He is a retired mechanical
engineer with no linguistic and little L2 background. He needs an
inexpensive English to German and German to English translation
DOS/Windows program to support his interest in researching
genealogy. Is there shareware that would be useful? Would the changes
in written German in the last one hundred to two hundred years be a
problem? I would appreciate user comments or pointers to reviews of:

	Power Translator(R) German Deluxe CD Windows	$112.99
	German Assistant(TM) Deluxe CD Windows $ 49.99
	German Assistant(TM) Deluxe 3.5" with CPU order $ 19.99


Is the difference in prices worthwhile?

As a non-linguist I thought that a simple test for machine translation
would be to input the results of a English to German translation back
into the German to English mode and compare the English texts. Simple
declarative sentences could be used at first and then progressively
more complicated elements like idioms, figures of speech, etc could be
added. Is this a standard test or is there some flaw that is obvious
to the expert?

Please e-mail all information to pkarnaccess.digex.net I will
summarize and have Helen post it to the List if the replies warrant
it.

Phil Karn, Sr. (pkarnaccess.digex.net)