Sample Burmese Sorting Program

I uploaded the Burmese Sorting Software (Trial). It can sort the dictionary order of (Burmese-Burmese) published by Myanmar Language Commission.

Burmese Sorting Software Download

Burmese Sorting

I had made a lot of research for Burmese Sorting in recent years. Now, I have developed an algorithm successfully. It can sort all the data as long as the data is compliant with the standard ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2/WG2 and technical notes UTN#11.

The fonts which compliant with the above mentioned standard are (as long as I know) Myanmar2, Myanmar3, Parabike and Padauk. There may be many more with compliant with the standard. The input (keyboard) should also be in compliant with the above mentioned standard.

It can sort out the input with the order of dictionary (Burmese-Burmese Dictionary, Burmese-English Dictionary) released by Myanmar Language Commission.

With the help of my colleague, I have developed a sample software and a .dll file for sorting.

Since all the cost incurs to me, I need some money to recover the research cost. I will provide the sample software free but I will sell .dll file with some cost. .dll file can be used by the developers who wish to include the Burmese sorting in their own programs.

I will upload the sample software in a few days. ( I can't use internet at office. I upload it as soon as I can get a chance. )

For developers, please contact me to wunnakoko at gmail dot com. I will provide you the detail for the cost.

No Internet Connection at Myanmar Unicode & NLP Research Center

The internet access was not available to public in Myanmar from 28th September 2007 but it restored to normal condition by 15th October 2007. But the authorities at Myanmar Computer Federation (MCF) blogged the staffs of Myanmar Unicode and NLP Research center till today.

I don't know when will they open back again. This makes the advancement of NLP research to a very slow condition.

Burmese Language Project at OpenOffice.org

I have created "Burmese Language Project" at OpenOffice.org . Firstly, we need to enable Burmese Language at I18N (Internationalization) part. I18N is a kind of supporting usage of Burmese with OpenOffice. I18N includes:

• Word, line and sentence break
• Search and replace
• Paragraph numbering
• Transliteration
• Character classification
• Number Formats
• Calendars
• Collation
• Locale data

I have grouped a team of members to work on it. Our team members do not work for money but they need money to work. So, I am looking for a research grant. If any person wants to provide any contribution, not only money but also works, please contact me at wunnakoko at gmail dot com.

Syllable Segmentation & Line Breaking Software

I hope we can publish the beta version of Syllable Segmentation Software in near future. Although, it is in beta version, we have already tested for a period of time. The software will do the following:
1. Phonologic segmentation of Burmese Syllables
2. Orthographic segmentation of Burmese Syllables
3. Line Breaking or Word Wrapping

It can handle three types of documents:
1. Text Documents (.txt) files
2. XML Documents (.xml) files
3. MS Word Documents (.doc) files

By handling XML documents, we hope that it will be useful for segmenting all types of other documents like Spreadsheet files, Database files, etc.

I hope all of our friends and Burmese community will help us in testing it.

Syllable Segmentation

Syllable segmentation is the process of determination of syllable boundaries in a piece of text. Since Burmese is the tonal and analytic language and Burmese writing system is a syllabic writing system, the fundamental building blocks of a language are the syllables. In determination of syllable boundaries in Burmese Script, there can be of two types; 1) phonological boundary of a syllable, and 2) orthographic boundary of a syllable. Since Burmese script is a phonetic script, the phonological segmentation of a syllable is the basic segmentation. The phonological boundary of a syllable is defined, as the name goes, according to the phonological manner whereas the orthographic boundary of a syllable is defined according to the orthography. The orthographic syllable need not correspond exactly with a phonological syllable. The orthographic syllable is just the combination of phonological syllables and the non-breaking rules. Example: In a မႏၱေလး word, it has 3 phonological syllables, မန္, တ and ေလး. But, for orthographic syllable, it has just 2 syllables, မႏၱ and ေလး .

References

For all of you to have a reference for future NLP works, I uploaded some of my academic publications.

Master Thesis at Nagaoka University of Technology

Languages of Myanmar In Cyberspace

Word Break

A word, is a unit of language, carries meaning and consists of one or more morphemes. Although there are spaces to separate between words English, no spaces are needed to add in Myanmar. Typically, a word will consist of a root or stem and zero or more affixes. Words can be combined to create phrase, clauses and sentences (Wikipedia).

So, word boundary must be detected for Myanmar Language. But, Myanmar Language is the tonal and analytic language. Myanmar writing system is a syllabic writing system, so the fundamental building blocks of a language are the syllables. Determining syllable boundary can be done by rule base.

A word can be formed by one or more than one syllables.

Syllable break which can be used for sorting, searching, text to speech, transliteration, can also be used for word breaking methods.

Word break which can be used for spell checking, grammar checking, translation, line breaking, etc,.

Our Discussion group

We have created a google group for discussion about Myanmar NLP development. I like to invite all the interested people to join and post at myanmarnlpteam@googlegroups.com.

What is Font?

Some people put messages about "FONT". So, I like to contribute some information on "FONT". The interested people can learn about "FONT" at the following sites:
w3 (World Wide Web Consortium) says as http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/fonts.html
wiki (The free encyclopedia) says as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Font

I like to let people know that font is not to sort, break, etc. The background encoding has to be used for syllable break, sorting, word breaking, etc.

In Myanmar, there are many magicians. The magicians use technology to show magic to people. So, people think it is true.

I like to give a general logic here.
1 ft= 12 x 1 inch
so 12 times of 1 in (from Myanmar) has to be the same with 1 ft (from United States). Am I right?

It is called "STANDARD". If "SORTING" is OK, all Unicode encoded text can be sorted. Why it is only for the specific "FONT" and any product. It is like 12 times of 1 in (from Myanmar) is not equal to 1 ft (from United States).

It is also the same for "BREAK" and other processes.

Unicode Font (OR) Unicode Compliant Font

Unicode consortium do not develop any font. The font developers develop font. There can be Unicode compliant fonts and Unicode non-compliant fonts. If someone wants to sure that the font is Unicode compliant or not, check with the Unicode system.
Myanmar 3, the latest release of our NLP research team, is the Unicode compliant font. The main reason Myanmar 3 is reliable and Unicode compliant is that the Unicode system for Myanmar is created with us.

Download Links

We provide some downloads which are the products of our team. These products (softwares, fonts, publications, documents, etc) are created by all or one of the members of Myanmar NLP research center.
(Point the cursor on the following links. Right click on the mouse, choose "save target as".)
Myanmar 3 Font and Keyboard
Myanmar 3 Font Only

Who are we?

Basically, all the interested persons of Myanmar Unicode can write blog here. The core bloggers will be from the Myanmar NLP Team who are working on Myanmar Natural Language Processing.
Natural Language Processing is a kind of computer processing specialized for Human Language, like Burmese, Karen, English, Japanese, etc. which is referred as Natural Language in computer processing circle in order to differentiate Computer Programming Langauge like, C, C++, C#, Java, VB, etc.
This blog is to discuss the latest events on Myanmar NLP and also for people's point of view on Myanmar Unicode and other encodings.
We welcome all the participants' +ve and -ve points of view and discussions.