WeSay — Reviews & Guides

Resource Type: Video

Rowbory, D. “Videos.” WeSay. https://software.sil.org/wesay/screenshots/videos/#wesay1. Accessed May 17, 2022.

This series of tutorial videos walks users through the process of creating a project, opening WeSay, gathering words, describing words, and sending data to other parties.

These videos offer a helpful starting point, walking users through the most common actions performed by community member users on WeSay.

The tutorials can be found here.

Resource Type: Academic Article

Perlin, R. 2012. “WeSay, A Tool for Collaborating on Dictionaries
with Non-Linguists.” Language Documentation and Conservation, (6): 181-186. http://hdl.handle.net/10125/4507.

WeSay, A Tool for Collaborating on Dictionaries with Non-Linguists

Abstract:

“WeSay is a free, open-source software program for Windows and Linux, co-produced by Payap Language Software (based at Payap University in Chiang Mai, Thailand), SIL Papua New Guinea, and SIL International. The program envisions members of two major user groups collaborating on a dictionary through WeSay—advisors, typically linguists operating with a fair amount of computer experience and decent equipment; and users, native speaker community members who have at least some access to and comfort level with a computer. For a variety of reasons, it may not always be possible to assemble such user-advisor pairs, but the scenario is increasingly common as speakers of less common languages gain access to and become more familiar with information technology, and as more collaborative approaches to language documentation become popular. Judging by the projects listed on Language Depot, WeSay’s online data repository, dictionary projects around the world now appear to be making use of WeSay. The creators of WeSay have stressed the software’s simplicity, its task-based approach, the low training load needed, its potential for community participation, and its ability to run on “inexpensive, rugged, low-power hardware” (such as the computers distributed by the One Laptop Per Child program). On all accounts, they have done an impressive job and created something rare: a piece of language documentation designed to a significant degree around the needs of community members (or others just beginning in the field of language documentation). At the same time, advisors still play a critical role—setting up and maintaining projects is not entirely straightforward, and the ultimate added value from WeSay is likely to come from its use in conjunction with a Fieldworks Language Explorer (FLEx) dictionary project. The advisor’s role is to handle all of the “back end” administrative and technical details so that users can focus on the language work. WeSay is not—at least at the time of this writing—a tool for communities to create their own dictionaries, although it points to the kind of web-based, mobile solutions that might make this possible.”

This article can be found here.

Resource Type: Academic Article

Hatton, J. 2011. “Software for Remote Dictionary Collaboration.” Documenting and Revitalizing Austronesian Languages, 24(4): 420-431. https://doi.org/10.1093/ijl/ecr020.

Software for Remote Dictionary Collaboration

Abstract:

“As Language Documentation projects seek to involve native speakers in building their own dictionaries, they run into a problem: if we use computers, how can multiple people in disparate locations with differing degrees of technological training and connectivity work on a dictionary at the same time? In response, the Chorus software library has been developed and integrated with both FieldWorks Language Explorer (for linguists) and WeSay (for non-linguists). These now support disconnected and occasionally-connected collaboration, 3-way xml dictionary merging, notes, discussions, conflict handling, and full project history. Several projects are now experimenting with teams of linguists and native speakers working on the same dictionary, each with tools suited to their needs and expertise.”

This article can be found here.

Resource Type: Academic Article

Albright, E. and Hatton, J. 2007. “WeSay: A Tool for Engaging Native Speakers
in Dictionary Building.” Documenting and Revitalizing Austronesian Languages, 189-201. https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/59979134-2851-479c-80a4-f66ed67893fc/content.

WeSay: A Tool for Engaging Native Speakers in Dictionary Building

Abstract:

“This paper introduces WeSay, an open source software application designed to involve language community members in the description and documentation of their language. Intended for rugged, low-power hardware, WeSay’s simplified user interface removes many barriers that typically prevent the direct involvement of community members. In this paper, we describe the dictionary-building features of WeSay that allow a linguist to tailor a sequence of language documentation tasks to engage community members. These tasks reduce a production step to its simplest form, enabling focused training and division of labor. Word gathering tasks use semantic domains, word lists, or patterns of likely words to build up the dictionary. Successive tasks add specific content, such as glosses and example sentences, to the entries. In addition, the program can prepare simple paper publications designed to promote community support for the effort and can transfer the raw data to the linguist for further processing with tools that are more powerful.”

This article can be found here.