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Linguistic Society of America (LSA) 2005, Oakland, CA

 http://www.lsadc.org/annmeet/sessions.html#sunmorn
 Workshop: Unicode for Linguists: How To Type, Send, and Archive
 Linguistic  Texts by Computer
 Sunday, 9 January 9:00 AM - 12:00 PM
 Room: Simmons 3/4, Oakland Convention Center.
 Organizer: Deborah Anderson (UC-Berkeley)
 Participants: Charles A. Bigelow (Bigelow & Holmes), William Bright, 
 Peter Constable (Microsoft), Richard Cook (UC-Berkeley), Kenneth
 Whistler  (Sybase, Inc.)

--- Workshop Schedule ---

 9:00 - 9:05   Introductory remarks by William Bright
 
 9:05 - 9:50   "Introduction to Unicode for Linguists" 
                by Peter Constable
 
 9:55 - 10:25   "Unicode Fonts for Linguists (with a demonstration)" 
                by Charles Bigelow
 
 10:30 - 11:00  "Conversion of Legacy Linguistic Transcription data to
                Unicode 4.0" by Richard Cook
 
 11:05 - 11:20  "Developing Tools with IPA-encoded Unicode: Towards a
                Phonologically-Based Search Engine" by Edward Garrett
 
 11:25 - 11:40  "The Future of Unicode" 
                by Deborah Anderson and Ken Whistler
 
 11:40 - 12:00  Discussion and Q & A period with panel participants.

---

COOK 

 Dr. Richard Cook (Project Manager and Systems Administrator, the
 Sino-Tibetan Etymological Dictionary and Thesaurus at UC Berkeley
 <http://stedt.berkeley.edu>; Unicode <http://www.unicode.org/>
 editorial committee member, representative to ISO/IEC
 JTC1/SC2/WG2/IRG <http://www.cse.cuhk.edu.hk/~irg/>; co-author of the
 CDL specification <http://www.wenlin.com/cdl/>; Post-Doctoral
 Researcher and programmer for the World Color Survey
 <http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/wcs/>.)
 
 Richard Cook will discuss Unicode 4.0 linguistic transcription
 support, and conversion of legacy data to Unicode 4.0. The use of
 custom(izable) tools for converting legacy data to Unicode 4.0 will
 be demonstrated.


Title:

	Conversion of legacy linguistic transcription data to Unicode 4.0

Abstract:

 	This presentation describes the process of converting legacy data to
 Unicode encoding, including character set mapping, encoding unencoded
 characters, and demonstration of conversion tool use. Terminology is
 introduced in context, including the following: legacy data, code
 point, encoding, custom encoding, standard encoding, USV, mapping,
 character set, encoding form.
 
 	Unicode conversion of the STEDT Project's legacy data serves as a
 specific example. The STEDT Project (federally funded at UC Berkeley
 since 1987) began migrating its million-record Sino-Tibetan (ST)
 lexical relational database system to Unicode in earnest in the late
 90's. The justification for this conversion hinges on attaining
 universal permanent data access. STEDT data was originally input and
 archived using a custom-encoded Apple Macintosh character set refined
 over the years on the basis of the transcription characters appearing
 in specific lexical print (and handwritten) sources. Data input using
 other encodings was migrated to this custom encoding. Source
 transcriptions would sometimes be normalized in order to render them
 in the custom encoding, though in general the character set was
 well-suited to capturing ST transcriptional conventions. The
 custom-encoding was not, however, well-suited to smooth data
 interchange and archiving.
 
 	The conversion process involved the following steps: (0) Realizing
 that it needed to be done, learning how to do it, and that it could
 only be done in stages; (1) Mapping to Unicode 3.0; (2) Formal
 proposal of unencoded characters for inclusion in Unicode/ISO 10646;
 (3) Mapping to Unicode 4.0; (4) Creation of tools for conversion of
 the custom-encoded data; (5) Creation of tools for use of the new
 Unicode data. Complete standard mapping of this character set became
 possible only with the advent of Unicode 4.0, with the encoding of
 certain characters peculiar to ST usage that had previously escaped
 the notice of standardization bodies.
 
 	Dictating aspects of actions taken in step 4, step 5 is ongoing, and
 addresses a whole set of related issues, including: (A) relative
 primacy and maintenance of the data in original and converted forms;
 (B) database application data requirements; (C) font support.
 
 	Unicode now serves as the standard interface to STEDT's lexical
 data, and with application and font support coming soon to a computer
 near you, Unicode will provide linguists worldwide with access to this
 valuable data for years to come.


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Dr. Richard S. Cook
STEDT Project
Linguistics Dept.
UC Berkeley
http://stedt.berkeley.edu

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