Readme file for Methrahessi
v1.30=================================CONTENTS========1:
Introduction2: Installation3: Features of Methrahessi4: Linguistic
Notes5: Future Development6: Distribution7: Getting Methrahessi8:
Contact details9: Acknowledgements1:
Introduction===============Welcome to the world's first (and almost
certainly last!) Lapine-English / English-Lapine translation
program, with the emphasis firmly on the Lapine to English side of
things. Methrahessi (which means "Storyteller" in Lapine) can be
considered supplementary to my online course, "Frithaes! An
introduction to Colloquial Lapine" (see section 8: "Contact
Details" for the URL).As with a paper dictionary, this program is
in no way a substitute for proper study of the language, but I hope
it will prove to be a useful aid. I strongly advise you to read
both this readme file and, especially, TUTORIAL.TXT before using
Methrahessi.Methrahessi should run without problems on Windows 95
and upwards.2: Installation===============The basic Methrahessi
package should contain six files:METHRAHESSI_130.EXE The executable
programENGLAP.MTH English to Lapine word listLAPENG.MTH Lapine to
English word listHISTORY.TXT A brief account of Methrahessi's
developmentREADME.TXT This readme fileTUTORIAL.TXT A brief "Getting
Started" guideThese should all be extracted to the same directory;
no further installation is necessary.3: Features of
Methrahessi==========================As of this version (v1.30),
Methrahessi has the following features:* Vocabulary of 340 Lapine
and 420 English words, easily extensible by the user* Can recognise
and translate all regular Lapine plural forms* Can handle regular
third-person singular verbs ending with "-ing" and past tenses
ending with "-ed". * Specific routines to handle "said", "went" and
"came" in English to Lapine translation* Handles most punctuation
correctly, including double quotes (not brackets!)* Translation
speed c. 35-40 words per second on my P3-533MHz machine* Some
/extremely/ simple context handling routines.* Er...* That's it.
=:P4: Linguistic Notes===================Translation software is
notoriously hard to write - even commercial packages costing many
thousands of pounds are unsatisfactory for much serious work. A
little freeware program such as this is therefore never going to be
a substitute for human (or lapine!) learning.As of v1.30,
Methrahessi does not attempt to go very much at all beyond a crude
word-by-word translation - its aim at present is mainly to allow
the learner to get the gist of a Lapine passage, by combining their
own knowledge of the language with the output from the program.I
have concentrated on translation from Lapine to English, as I
consider the most likely use of this program to be in aiding
learners or non-Lapine speakers in their comprehension of short
passages of Lapine. The English to Lapine facilities are, for the
moment at least, very much second best - for example, even many
regular third-person singular verbs are not catered for, as the
"-s" termination tends to make them look like plural nouns to a
computer. I've written some extremely simple code to handle the
most common forms, but English has a *lot* of irregular ones. The
same goes for the past tense - "she hopped" will translate
properly, despite the doubled "p" but not "she ate".In the case of
a few Lapine words which are impossible to translate easily into
English (eg "tharn"), I have opted to simply repeat the Lapine in
the output - so "ai laynt tharn" would produce "THEY WAS THARN".
(Yes, it says "WAS" for plurals, at least for now - it's simpler
than putting "WAS/WERE", and the meaning is still clear.)I've
chosen to represent the future of "to be" (ie, "will") by "layth"
rather than "lay zayn" for simplicity, though there's not a lot in
it. The only English past participles recognised are "was/were",
"said", "came" and "went".Inflected Lapine is almost entirely
ignored: its grammatical structure is so different as to require a
completely different approach to translation, and I really don't
have the time to write two programs!5: Future
Development=====================Despite saying in the readme files
to earlier versions that any sort of contextual analysis of the
translations was a non-starter, I now feel that some limited
processing could be done. I shan't go into great detail on this
just yet, but there could be some interesting developments in a
while... but please be aware that given my usual pace of
development, "a while" could easily mean several years.Being a
little more specific, though, I want to improve the handling of
possessives ("the chief's burrow" etc), the processing of
third-person singular verbs, past tenses and also allow a little
more flexibility in terms of English past participles instead of
"hard-coding" them into the .MTH files as separate words. Watch
this space!NOTE: Methrahessi's word lists contain *British*
spellings of English words! You can easily change them to your own
taste if required - despite the .MTH extension, they are plain text
files and can be edited in Notepad or the text editor of your
choice. You can also add extra definitions in this way, provided
that the layout is strictly adhered to - for example, you *must*
use spaces, not tabs, to pad out columns.6:
Distribution===============Methrahessi is freeware, and may be
freely distributed on a non-commercial basis. The program was
written in Delphi 6 PE, and the utterly dreadful source code is
available on request to anyone insane enough to want it - see
section 9 ("Contact details") for my email address.7: Getting
Methrahessi======================As of v1.30, Methrahessi finally
has a home on the web! =:) You can obtain the latest version of
this program from my furry website, "Logan's Runes",
at:http://www.loganberry.furtopia.org/If you encounter any problems
with this site, then feel free to email me (see the next
section).8: Contact details==================Comments on
Methrahessi, the Lapine language or Watership Down in general are
most welcome, and can be sent (please use a clear subject line to
avoid my spam filters) to:[email protected] detailed
course, "Frithaes! An Introduction to Colloquial Lapine", can be
found on my other website,
"Bits'n'Bob-stones":http://www.geocities.com/daveb75/9:
Acknowledgements====================* Richard Adams - of course!*
Zoe Kealtan, for her original work on Lapine grammar.* The members
of the 'watershipdown' Yahoo Group, particularly Befrafa,
Entei-rah, Hawthorn and Rdiger Grammes.* Borland for Delphi, though
their no longer offering a PE version is IMHO utter stupidity and
playing into the paws of Microsoft.* Furtopia, thanks to whom I
finally have somewhere to put Methrahessi up for download.*
Everyone else connected, in however small a way, with Mr Adams'
wonderful
story.===============================================================David
"Loganberry" Buttery, Worcestershire, England, March
2004===============================================================
