Rosetta project
The Rosetta Project is an international collective effort of linguists and native speakers of different languages who are working to develop a contemporary version of the historical stone of Rosetta in the form of a small metal disk.
concept
The aim of the project is an overview and a permanent archive of all documented human languages. Some of these languages have fewer than 1,000 speakers worldwide, while others are at risk of becoming extinct due to the increasing dominance of other languages - especially English and Spanish. The intention is to create a unique platform for research and education in the field of historical-comparative linguistics , as well as a functional tool that can help rediscover and revive languages that will be lost in the future.
The project builds this large archive by volunteering volunteers contributing texts and proofreading them. The first Oxford English Dictionary was created in the same way . The finished archive will be publicly available on three different media:
- on small, very finely etched discs made of a nickel alloy ,
- in a monumental reference work in one volume and
- in the constantly growing online archive.
The Rosetta project is led by the Long Now Foundation .
Rosetta Disk
A so-called Rosetta Disk is a disk made of a nickel alloy for long-term archiving . The written or drawn information is etched as an image, i.e. not in a digital format that may no longer be known in the distant future. The disks are 7 cm (2.8 inches ) in diameter . They should still be readable with optical aids in 10,000 years (similar to a microfilm ). The front contains a kind of instruction manual in the eight different widely used languages Arabic , English , Hindi , Indonesian , Mandarin (standard Chinese), Russian , Spanish and Swahili . The eight spirally arranged inscriptions in Arabic (Arabic), Latin (English, Indonesian, Spanish and Swahili), Devanagari (Hindi), Chinese (Mandarin) and Cyrillic (Russian) script begin at the edge in characters that can be read without further aids and quickly become smaller . The English version is:
"This is an archive of over 1,000 human languages assembled in the year 02002 CE Magnify 1,000 times to find over 15,000 pages of language documentation."
"This is an archive of over 1,000 human languages, compiled in 02002 a. Z. Magnify 1,000 times to find over 15,000 pages of language documentation. "
Further inside there is an alphabetically sorted directory of languages and in the center a two-dimensional projection of the globe. On the back there is information on over 2500 languages - in addition to a Swadesh list of the most important terms, information on pronunciation and sentence formation as well as texts. The 15,000 pages are clearly recognizable as such when enlarged 100 times and can be read when enlarged 500 times.
Large donors (over $ 25,000) received a limited first edition copy in a protective sphere with the top half made of optical glass . With this magnifying glass the pane can be viewed with 6x magnification. The lower half of the sphere is made of high-quality, stainless steel and contains a rolled steel band in a cylindrical cavity, on which the respective owners / keepers are to register. A stainless steel ring connects both halves.
background
It is foreseeable that 50–90% of the world's languages will disappear over the next century, many with little or no significant documentation. A large part of the research that has been carried out on languages with few speakers is hidden in private research collections or insufficiently conserved in poorly funded archives.
As part of the effort to safeguard this legacy of linguistic diversity, the Long Now Foundation is creating an online overview and permanent, non-resource-consuming archive of 1,000 of the world's estimated 7,000 languages.
publication
A first version of the disc was produced in autumn 2002 . Mass production is basically planned, but not yet being implemented. The online version, however, is growing steadily. Furthermore, on March 2, 2004, one of the disks was put into orbit with the launch of the Rosetta comet probe from Kourou ( French Guiana ). On September 30, 2016, the space probe crashed as planned on comet 67P / Churyumov-Gerasimenko , on which the “Philae” lander had already touched down on November 12, 2014, starting from Rosetta.
The probable fate of a copy kept in the Smithsonian Institution after a hypothetical disappearance of mankind is shown in episode 3 of the second season of the documentary fiction series Zukunft ohne Menschen (“The Cradle of Civilization”, USA 2010).
See also
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Archived copy ( Memento from January 25, 2007 in the Internet Archive )