CreoleConvert

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About CreoleConvert | CreoleConvert Text Samples | New CreoleConvert Developments |
About The Creole Clearinghouse | Contact Information

About CreoleConvert

CreoleConvert was developed in 1991 by Marilyn Mason specifically to help resolve
the conflicts of multiple spelling systems in written Haitian Creole by automatically and accurately converting texts using former spelling systems into texts that conform to the
official Institut Pédagogique National (IPN) orthography (see text sample links below).
The Haitian Creole version of CreoleConvert is able to convert documents written in any
of the former spelling systems (including hybrids) into IPN, vice versa, and between the different versions. Also, customized versions of CreoleConvert could be developed if there were specific client needs which could not be met with the standard Haitian Creole version.

CreoleConvert has proven to be a productivity booster tool for those who work with electronic texts in Haitian Creole. This is because it was envisioned, created, tested, and validated with the end-user in mind. It has also been demonstrated at multiple conferences as a practical software tool which satisfies the real needs of end-users for varying real-language contexts.

Because of lack of funding to prepare CreoleConvert for sale on the open market, Marilyn Mason now uses CreoleConvert for the provision of services to clients of The Creole Clearinghouse.

CreoleConvert Text Samples*

*Text samples from Pressoir-Faublas version of Bib la an Ayisyin, published in 1989 by Société Biblique Haïtienne; automatically converted to a generic IPN orthography (such
as found in Jounal Libète) by means of CreoleConvert. Permission was granted by the Haitian Bible Society to Marilyn Mason in 1996 to reproduce these research results.
More text samples available here.

New CreoleConvert Developments

In September 2002, Marilyn Mason developed a variant of her original Haitian Creole-specific CreoleConvert engine to create a very preliminary prototype software-driven program to convert texts written in a hybrid form of Guadeloupean Creole to IPN standard Haitian Creole. This was done in response to a real-life situation presented to the Windows on Haiti Fowòm Ayisyen, where a man from Guadeloupe was attempting to correspond in Creole with Haitians. Stay tuned for further developments. Having broken the up-to-now written communications barrier between two French-lexically-based Creole languages, conversion programs for other French-lexically-based Creole languages are soon to follow. It's all a matter of accurate, professionally validated word list input to a proven functional conversion engine model almost totally unexploited between 1991 and 2002 because of lack of adequate financing.

As Founder, President & Chief Operating Officer of Mason Integrated Technologies (MIT2) from 1996-2002, many doors were opened to Marilyn Mason to advocate on behalf of the technological support of Creole languages at the highest levels of governmental and non-governmental agencies, industry, language technology conferences and academia. Creole advocacy, team building, and networking are the lasting legacies of MIT2.

Building upon this past experience, The Creole Clearinghouse (TCC) will, in collaboration
with a network of Creole specialists with whom Marilyn has established a basis of mutual
trust, make use of tools Marilyn created before the birth of MIT2 to improve the consistency
and excellence of materials translated and produced in Creole.

Marilyn P. Mason
The Creole Clearinghouse
P.O. Box 181015
Boston, Massachusetts 02118 U.S.A.

Tel: (+1) 617-247-8885
E-mail: MariLinc@aol.com