The project is studying the creation and presentation of documents in which more than one language is used, for example a dictionary from one language to another. Particular emphasis is being placed on support for languages which are not read and written in the standard European style (left to right and top to bottom), for example Japanese, Chinese, Mongolian, and Arabic, and on how these can be combined in a single document while all still retaining their traditional directionality.
A comprehensive study of a wide range of existing multi-lingual documents has been carried out, on the basis of which a formal model of generic multi-directional multi-lingual documents has been defined. This forms the basis for work on the definition of how such documents can be displayed, edited, etc.
The requirements for a software system supporting the creation and browsing of multi-lingual documents are also being defined, and these are being used as the foundation for the design and implementation of a prototype software system in the current phase of the project.
In the longer term, the project might be extended to support multi-media information. It may also form the basis for an extended system providing support for translation between different languages.
The project is also contributing, under the International Organisation for Standardisation's working group ISO/IEC JTC1 SC2 WG2, to the definition of an international standard encoding system for the Mongolian language which will form part of the Unicode/ISO international standard, a coding system which covers the majority of the world's languages. At the completion of this work we also hope to contribute to the work of the Unicode consortium on the definition of the requirements for software tools supporting this standard.
September 1995 to August 1996 (phase 1)
October 1996 to June 1997 (phase 2)
May 1998 to January 1999 (phase 3)
National University of Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar
A wide range of information systems require support for pieces of text in different languages. The most obvious example is perhaps a library, though many other institutions, including universities, government departments (particularly in countries where many different languages are used, for instance India), commercial industry, hospitals and tourist information services, often need to store or make available information in more than one language. This is particularly true in developing countries where a large amount of the information to be stored is likely to come from other countries.
While a number of projects across the world have put considerable effort into the problem of automatic translation between languages, the design of user interfaces to multi-lingual systems has received scant attention.
The project has completed a formal definition of the MultiScript system and is currently using this as a basis for developing a prototype software system capable of creating and browsing collections of multi-lingual documents in which different languages can retain their traditional directionalities.
In the first phase of the project, which ran from September 1995 to August 1996, one fellow from the National University of Mongolia carried out a detailed domain analysis of the domain of multi-lingual documents, constructed a formal model of multi-directional multi-lingual documents, and began work on the definition of the requirements for a software system supporting these documents. Reports covering the domain analysis and the draft requirements capture were produced, and the domain analysis and the formal model were summarised in UNU/IIST Technical Report #75 [1] and presented at the 1997 International Conference on the Computer Processing of Oriental Languages (ICCPOL'97), Hong Kong, in April 1997.
The second phase of the project ran from October 1996 to June 1997. One new fellow from the National University of Mongolia carried out the work together with the fellow from the first phase who returned to UNU/IIST and continued to work on the project on a voluntary basis. During this phase, the work from the first phase was extended to describe, both informally and formally, the creation, editing and display (including printing) of multi-directional multi-lingual documents. Three UNU/IIST Technical Reports represent the outputs of this phase of the project:
The third phase of the project began in May 1998. One fellow from the National University of Mongolia is collaborating with the fellow from the first phase, who continues to work at UNU/IIST as a visiting scientist, on the implementation of the prototype MultiScript system.
Throughout the project, all fellows, together with UNU/IIST staff, have contributed to the work on the definition of an international standard encoding system for the Mongolian language as part of the International Organisation for Standardisation's working group ISO/IEC JTC1 SC2 WG2. One fellow attended the ISO/IEC JTC1 SC2 WG2 international meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark, in April 1996 to contribute to the discussions on the then current coding proposal, and also attended two meetings - in Huhhot, Inner Mongolia, in December 1995 and in Beijing, China, in August 1996 - of the subgroup of ISO/IEC JTC1 SC2 WG2 responsible specifically for the Mongolian language and contributed to the production of a new draft encoding proposal. Subsequently, in January 1997, one fellow and one UNU/IIST member of staff attended the international meeting of ISO/IEC JTC1 SC2 WG2 in Singapore at which a joint (UNU/IIST, Mongolia, China) draft proposal for the standard encoding of the traditional Mongolian script was developed and submitted to the meeting. Work is continuing on the preparation of the final proposal, which is expected to be submitted to the ISO meeting in London in September 1998.
This work has also led to the creation of a font covering the characters of the traditional Mongolian script.
To develop the prototype system in the current phase of the project.