Spelling Variants Research Articles

Reinforcement of low-resource language translation with neural machine translation and backtranslation synergies

<p><span lang="EN-US">This research investigates challenges and advancements in neural machine translation (NMT), specifically targeting English-to-Kannada translation. Emphasizing the scarcity of data and linguistic complexity in low-resource languages (LRL), particularly Kannada, the study underscores the need for specialized techniques. Starting with exploration of Kannada's historical and cultural significance, the paper highlights critical importance of linguistic comprehension. The primary objective is to develop robust NMT models for precise and contextually relevant translations in low-resource scenarios. The novelty of this research lies in its innovative approach to Kannada NMT challenges, incorporating comprehensive examination of historical and cultural context to establish strong linguistic foundation. Motivated by the urgency to address translation needs in LRL, the paper proposes novel strategies, advocating notably for backtranslation to generate synthetic parallel corpora. Rigorous testing, including bilingual evaluation understudy (BLEU) score assessments, evaluates effectiveness of these proposed approaches. Beyond assessing backtranslation, the study explores challenges faced by Kannada NMT in handling dialectical and spelling variations. The research reports substantial 83-percentage-point average increase in BLEU scores, contingent on aligning unique Kannada terms with the same domain as existing occurrences. This study contributes significantly to Kannada natural language processing by offering novel insights into NMT intricacies and providing practical solutions for enhancing translation accuracy in low-resource settings.</span></p>

Opportunities And Threats Of Historical Evidence And Data Via Corpus-Based Software: A Case Study On Gerard Malynes

The aim of this paper is to exploit the informative nature of datasets that can be created from corpus-based software to explore specific phenomena in early modern specialized discourse, and to corroborate the adoption of the same software for historical analysis. Particular relevance will be devoted to the special nature of historical evidence, which has caused critical issues in the reliability of the data collected for the purpose of historical investigation of English. Spelling variation, in this sense, is one of the most crucial problems of Early Modern English, and this has often affected the reliability of data to be collected via software, especially when statistical findings are involved. The normalisation of historical texts has contributed enormously to make texts better readable for historical corpus analysis; and, consequently, to improve the accuracy and manipulation of data. Moreover, several tools used in corpus linguistics have benefited from the normalisation of spelling variants in the same terms, e.g. part-of-speech taggers for historical variety. This case study will attempt to explore the data retrievable from corpus-based software like VARD, #LancsBox and CQPweb, and to use them to corroborate a preliminary analysis of early modern economics discourse in two treatises written by Gerard Malynes in 1601 and 1623.

Guachisnay: anatomía de un presunto anglicismo

Abstract One of the ways that English loanwords can enter mainstream Spanish, perhaps the least common of them all, is via regional dialect. An Anglicism can be initially confined to dialect use and later make its way into the mainstream colloquial lexicon, thus technically becoming an internal loan. This may well be the case of the originally Andalusian word guachisnay, itself perhaps ultimately derived from English what’s your name? Drawing on a database of over one thousand citations taken from various sources, this article aims to examine the presumed etymon of the word and build up a full picture of the range of meanings it has in contemporary colloquial Spanish, both in Andalusia and elsewhere. It is concluded that the rich polysemy of the term is the result of its frequency of use and that, no matter what its true origin is, some of its spelling and pronunciation variants clearly show that speakers consider it to be an Anglicism.

Lung cancer among patients with secondhand smoke exposure: A systematic review.

e22506 Background: Smoking tobacco is recognized as the leading cause of lung cancer. However, it is imperative to note that 10–15% of lung cancer patients have no history of smoking, and that lung cancer remains the leading cause of cancer deaths among non-smokers. Since passive smokers are exposed to many carcinogenic compounds in the exhaled smoke, it is naturally plausible that secondhand smoking (SHS) is a risk factor for lung cancer. However, current USPSTF screening guidelines for lung cancer with low dose CT (LDCT) do not include patients exposed to SHS. We performed a systematic review to highlight SHS as an etiology of lung cancer and insights for inclusion in cancer screening criteria. Methods: We utilized the PubMed, Medline, Science Direct, and ClinicalTrials.gov databases to search for relevant literature using keywords ('low Dose CT,' 'secondhand smoke,' 'lung cancer'). The search strategy was designed to ensure a comprehensive retrieval of pertinent literature, minimizing the possibility of omitting articles due to insignificant spelling and/or semantic variations. Eligible studies had to be published between 2010 and 2023 and focused on examining the effect of SHS in populations at risk of lung cancer or those undergoing lung cancer screening. Articles not available in English were excluded from this systematic review. In total, 239 relevant articles were retrieved from all databases, narrowing down to 14 articles after the initial screening and further reducing to 4 articles after the second round of screening. Results: Three of the four articles included in our systemic review were conducted in Asia. A study by He et al. showed a substantial increase in the relative risk of lung cancer among SHS (RR 2.00; 95% CI, 0.62-6.40), with significant dose-response relationships between cumulative SHS exposure at home and work and the increased risk of cause-specific and total mortality. Another observational study on the use of LDCT in Japan has interestingly shown a shifting landscape of lung cancer demographics, with 49.6% of patients identified as never-smokers and 70.0% of the never-smoker lung cancer patients having SHS exposure. Secondhand smoking has also been reported to increase the risk of pulmonary nodules (HR 1.17; 95% CI, 1.01-1.35) and pulmonary emphysema (OR 13.6; 95% CI, 1.70-106.1) in those with moderate-to-high SHS exposure, which was the population where lung cancer was more prevalent. Conclusions: Our findings suggest a critical gap in current healthcare recommendations, specifically addressing the absence of guidelines for LDCT screening in individuals with moderate-to-high SHS exposure despite established evidence linking SHS to a significant increase in the risk of lung cancer development. More studies are needed to formulate evidence-based guidelines for lung cancer screening and detection in this population, given the expected mortality reduction benefit.

Keeping the Memory of the Past: Toponymic Space of Historical Circassia. Review of the book: Еmykova N. H. Istoricheskaia toponimiia Zapadnoi Cherkesii. Po materialam russkikh dokumentov XVIII–XIX vv. Chast’ pervaia: Abadzekhiia [Historical Toponymy of Western Circassia. Based on the Materials from Russian Documents of the 18th–19th Centuries. Part 1: Abadzekhia]. Maykop: Poligraph-Yug, 2021. 768 p.

The reviewed work represents the first instalment of a comprehensive project aimed at studying the historical toponymy of Western Circassia. This volume focuses on the geographical names of the Abadzekhia region. Since many of these toponyms have fallen out of use, their documentation, analysis, and interpretation rely primarily on the study of 18th and 19th-century Russian documents, including military maps, historical and ethnographic texts, and military and topographic descriptions of the area. Additionally, the author incorporates folklore references to geographical features of Abadzekhia. In total, approximately one thousand toponyms, encompassing both natural features and oikonyms, have been identified and mapped onto a modern representation of the North-West Caucasus. The dictionary entries, arranged alphabetically, consolidate all known spelling variants of each toponym, facilitating their semiotic reconstruction. Given the linguistic differences between Russian and Adyghe (Circassian), reconstructing the original pronunciation and etymology of the toponyms presents challenges. To address this, the author identified and utilised over five hundred Adyghe topographical elements frequently found in local place names. The work employs data and methodologies from various disciplines — linguistics, folklore, history, geography, ethnography, and archaeology — lending it an interdisciplinary nature. The scholarly apparatus of the publication, particularly the compilation of documents and literature, holds intrinsic value, offering a concise history of Circassian toponymy and providing a comprehensive overview of the book’s source material. This publication will undoubtedly be of significant interest to specialists in Adyghe toponymy as well as to local historians and guides.

The system of criteria for the choice of spelling in diachronic descriptive spelling

The article presents the methodology of research in the field of descriptive diachronic spelling. The aim of the work is to develop a system of criteria for choosing spelling variants at different stages of the formation of the studied orthogram. The need for such a system is justified both by the description of the diachronic analysis process and by a specific example of such an analysis. Special attention is paid to the disclosure of such important concepts for the theory of writing as "usage", "norm", "codification" and the relationship between these concepts. Special attention is paid to the question of the legality of the use of the term "customary norm", for which the arguments confirming the incorrectness of this term are considered in detail. In addition, the problems of correlation between the principles of spelling as tools of descriptive (descriptive) spelling and the rules as a result of the activities of orthologists codifying the norms of writing are discussed. The system of criteria for descriptive spelling is based on the system of rules of prescriptive spelling, namely the rules of modern spelling from the new electronic resource "Spelling commentary of the Russian Dictionary" (OROSS) by E. V. Beshenkova, O. E. Ivanova, E. V. Tenkova. The novelty of the results obtained in the article is due to the lack of research methodology in the field of descriptive diachronic spelling. The paper reveals such important concepts for the theory of writing as "usage", "norm", "codification" and clarifies the relationship between these concepts. As a result, the illegality of the use of the term "customary norm" was established, for which the arguments confirming the incorrectness of this term were considered in detail, in particular, that in certain contexts the terms "usage" and "norm" can be used indifferently. The result of the work was a system of criteria for choosing spelling options at different stages of the formation of the orthogram. The development of an original system of criteria for choosing spelling variants was carried out on the basis of a modern set of spelling rules. The scope of the research results is determined by describing the process of diachronic analysis of the orthogram and illustrated by a specific example of such analysis.

How much does spoken language affect spelling among primary school pupils? Quantitative research on spelling over the period of 1950–2021

Quantitative analysis of spelling among primary school pupils revealed that the spelling of primary school pupils was highly variable, but not chaotic. Despite deviations from norms, primary school pupils, probably based on the internal consistency of spelling, attempted to establish uniformity in their spelling by writing the same sounds or their combinations with the same orthographic codes. The theoretical consistency, grounded in spelling conventions, was statistically significantly higher in the essays of older primary school pupils compared to their younger counterparts, suggesting a potential influence of superior cognitive abilities in older children.The analysis confirmed the assumption that spoken language is a primary factor contributing to spelling variations in our primary school children. Its impact is particularly prominent in grades 1–2. Although teachers use corrections to maintain spelling consistency, only one-seventh of primary school children’s spelling remains unaffected by it.It was determined that spoken language alone accounted for spelling variations in one-fifth of primary school pupils. Additionally, one-fifth exhibited a stronger influence from causes other than spoken language, indicating a diverse range of factors affecting spelling. A small portion of primary school children had spelling influenced exclusively by factors unrelated to spoken language.Contrary to common assertions in the public sphere, the data of this research did not support claims of a decline in literacy among schoolchildren. No statistically significant difference was observed in the frequency of words failing to meet norms when comparing the spelling of primary school pupils from the Soviet era to the current period. Current primary school children do not exhibit a significantly higher tendency to write based on spoken language than their counterparts in the Soviet era.

The impact of Star Wars on the English language: Star Wars-derived words and constructions in present-day English corpora

Abstract Since George Lucas’s film A New Hope was first screened in 1977, the Star Wars saga has become a pop-culture phenomenon incorporating films, videogames, books, merchandise, and a quasi-religious philosophy, but linguistic research on Star Wars is scarce and has mainly focused on language use in the films. There is as yet no investigation of the impact of Star Wars on the English language, and the present study fills this gap using corpus-linguistic methods to investigate the extent to which characteristic words and constructions from the Star Wars universe have become established in English. Five Star Wars-derived items included in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), namely Jedi, Padawan, lightsabre (with spelling variants), Yoda, and the characteristic construction to the dark side were analysed regarding their frequency of occurrence in four corpora of present-day English (COCA, COHA, BNC, BNC Spoken 2014) and coded regarding their level of independence from the original films. The results show that over one-third of the uses of the investigated Star Wars-derived items are innovative (like the BNC example Other imbibers have gone over to the dark side of beer, rejecting the pasteurised lager produced by the breweries) and thus well integrated into the English language.

Measuring internal spelling variation of an Early Modern English text

Measuring internal spelling variation of an Early Modern English text

Translingual English words of Korean origin and beyond: skinship, fighting, chimaek

ABSTRACT This study offers an overview of contemporary translingual English words derived from Korean and examines their unique characteristics. Previous research has highlighted that translingual words transcend borders (Kiaer, 2019), can emerge accidentally and swiftly propagate through online platforms, and exhibit various spelling variations (Ahn, 2021). By analyzing data from online databases like the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) and Google Trends, this study explores additional qualities present in translingual English words originating from Korean. The qualities of Korean translingual words reveal intricate and diverse developmental trajectories. They enjoy widespread usage in a global context even before gaining local traction. The popularity of these words has surged alongside the remarkable growth of the K-pop fandom and the influence of Asian English speakers who introduce variations in spelling and meaning. Ultimately, this study delves into the pragmatic borrowing of Korean words by English speakers worldwide, underscoring the significant impact of Korean on contemporary English language dynamics.

Greek-Coptic Script-Mixing in Egyptian Personal Names and Toponyms of Greek Documents

This paper investigates the inclusion of “Coptic-only” letters in the spelling of Egyptian personal names and toponyms in otherwise Greek documents. A diachronic analysis of eighty documentary texts (4th–8th c. CE), primarily on papyrus, shows an increase of evidence in the sixth century, in line with recent literature on the evolution of documentary Coptic. As opposed to earlier papyri, which were mainly everyday texts with highly problematic Greek and interference from Egyptian, many later documents were of higher legal value, penned by bilingual scribes who were proficient in Greek, who could incorporate Coptic characters into their Greek writing, proving that script-mixing could be unrelated to poor linguistic competence. The phenomenon seems to have arisen from an unconscious cognitive process of ad hoc phoneme-to-grapheme conversion, which offered different spelling variants, and was triggered by the Egyptian origin of names, the special phonemes that certain Coptic graphemes represented, and the lack of inflection amidst the Greek text.

Cantonese culinary lexical interaction between Hong Kong and Singapore English

The English language continues to function as a form of linguistic capital in former British colonies. Although previous studies on World English lexicon documented how and what English lexical items entered another language, few studies have been conducted to investigate the typology of lexical interaction between two postcolonial English varieties. This paper aims to describe how Cantonese-origin English culinary lexical terms were spread from either Hong Kong or Singapore, whilst illustrating the possible multitrajectory pathways of lexical interaction in the Cantophone world by demonstrating five types of translingual practices of food words with Cantonese roots. The lexical examples of food words discussed in this paper were taken from Instagram, Google Map, Google Search, Google Trends, and Oxford English Dictionary. Drawing on the theoretical notion of the ‘sunflower model’, this qualitative study argues that Sinograph (a logographic written system; also known as Honzi) is a space of mediation, which plays an influential role in shaping the trajectories of culinary lexical terms across multilingual Asia. Findings also suggest that individuals’ multilingual competencies and the bidirectional influences between two Sinitic varieties (Cantonese and Mandarin) could shape spelling variations and conventions in Asian Englishes.

Corpus philology: Using the Dictionary of Old English to get bigger data for Old English spelling variation

Abstract This article presents a methodology for obtaining large datasets for the spelling of individual phonological segments in Old English texts, based on searching the Dictionary of Old English Corpus for the attested spellings listed in the Dictionary of Old English A-H. It exemplifies this ‘corpus philology’ through a study of 216,526 spellings for words beginning with h followed by a vowel, using a variety of techniques to evaluate the methodology’s precision and recall, which are calculated as very high for <h->initial spellings (precision 100% precision, recall 92.1%) and moderate, but still usable, for <h->less spellings (precision 85.5%, recall 58.3%). Data for fourteen other segments related to the behaviour of h- in Old English is presented in the Supplementary Materials that complement the paper online. This dataset of 379,484 spellings from 2,605 Old English texts is shown to seriously problematize the findings of traditional philology, the conclusions of which are in contrast based on only a handful of spellings from a few texts, and to have the potential to radically enhance our understanding of the literary and linguistic histories of English.

The Impact of Data Pre-Processing on Hate Speech Detection in a Mix of English and Hindi–English (Code-Mixed) Tweets

Due to the increasing reliance on social network platforms in recent years, hate speech has risen significantly among online users. Government and social media platforms face the challenging responsibility of controlling, detecting, and removing massively growing hateful content as early as possible to prevent future criminal acts, such as cyberviolence and real-life hate crimes. Twitter is used globally by people from various backgrounds and nationalities; it contains tweets posted in different languages, including code-mixed language, such as Hindi–English. Due to the informal format of tweets with variations in spelling and grammar, hate speech detection is especially challenging in code-mixed text. In this paper, we tackle the critical issue of hate speech detection on social media, with a focus on a mix of English and Hindi–English (code-mixed) text messages on Twitter. More specifically, we aim to evaluate the impact of data pre-processing on hate speech detection. Our method first performs 10-step data cleansing; then, it builds a detection method based on two architectures, namely a convolutional neural network (CNN) and a combination of CNN and long short-term Memory (LSTM) algorithms. We tune the hyperparameters of the proposed model architectures and conduct extensive experimental analysis on real-life tweets to evaluate the performance of the models in terms of accuracy, efficiency, and scalability. Moreover, we compare our method with a closely related hate speech detection method from the literature. The experimental results suggest that our method results in an improved accuracy and a significantly improved runtime. Among our best-performing models, CNN-LSTM improved accuracy by nearly 2% and decreased the runtime by almost half.

Planning and Assessing Word Production to Support Lexical Spelling Learning in Grade 1

Learning to spell is a major challenge for beginning writers because they have to develop a great deal of knowledge. Teachers are faced with a challenge as well in that they have to plan the words to be studied and assess the skill level of their students by analyzing the words they produce. The objectives of this study were to measure the lexical spelling success rate of French-speaking Québec students in grade 1 (6-7 years old) in certain spelling fragility areas, to describe the spelling variations that appeared and to discuss the relevance of planning and assessing word production. The research was conducted with 172 students (82 girls and 90 boys) from nine classes in one public urban elementary school. They were administered a dictation exercise using words selected with various criteria. The analysis was conducted on a corpus of 2076 words produced. The researchers then calculated the spelling success rate and the percentage of errors, in addition to doing a fine-grained analysis of the phonographic, orthographic and morphographic productions and the types of errors made (omission, substitution, addition and displacement). The results highlighted changes under way. They also showed that the success rate varies according to the spelling fragility areas being targeted and, surprisingly, that the rate fluctuates for the same fragility areas. The dictation used seems to be an “economical” tool for various reasons, among others because it is easy to administer (requires little time) and the spelling success rate is easy to determine.

An Analysis of Pairwise Question Matching with Machine Learning

n the realm of Natural Language Processing (NLP) and machine learning, lies the challenging quest to detect duplicate question pairs with semantic precision. Our research endeavors to craft a cutting-edge model capable of discerning whether two questions, despite their divergent phrasing, spelling, or grammatical variations, share a common intent on digital forums or search engines. A paramount facet of this study involves the creation and training of an exemplary model using a meticulously curated dataset of labeled question pairs, each annotated as either duplicates or distinct entities. By leveraging state-of-the-art NLP techniques, we aspire to build an exceptionally accurate model that will revolutionize the user search experience by facilitating the identification of duplicate questions. This pioneering research paves the way for a more refined and enhanced approach to tackle the challenges of semantic similarity in the context of question pairs

Order out of Chaos: The Orthographic Standardisation of full and -ful

ABSTRACT The suffix -ful, in words like hopeful and wonderful, originates in the adjective full, from whence it seems to have undergone grammaticalisation. In Present-day English, the morphological differences between these two items are marked by their orthography: in addition to losing its free-word status, -ful also simplified the digraph <ll> to <l>. Although the current orthographic configuration of these items reveals the interplay between spelling and morphology, there arise some questions regarding the process leading up to it, especially when considering the orthographic instability of the Middle and Early Modern periods. This article thus studies the selection of the spelling variants <full> and <ful> over time in order to shed some light on their distribution and standardisation. Adopting a corpus-based approach that draws data from the Helsinki Corpus of English Texts, the analyses of intra- and extralinguistic phenomena ultimately point to speakers as the enablers of regularisation in this very instance.

Spelling Variation in Inner-Circle Englishes

English is the language with the largest number of speakers in the world, when both native and non-native speakers are included. With an estimated 1,268 million users around the globe, linguistic variation is bound to occur. Research on World Englishes focuses on the study of this variation, though it has systematically disregarded the linguistic level of orthography. This neglect has operated under the assumption that most contemporary varieties must adhere to British English spelling norms. Nevertheless, recent studies on the Americanisation of English worldwide (Mair 2013; Gilquin 2018; Gonçalves et al. 2018) have brought the question of spelling variation back to the fore. The present paper thus analyses the distribution of the most distinctive spelling variants—i.e. -our/-or, -re/-er and -isation/-ization—in the varieties of the inner circle from a synchronic perspective. By means of a corpus-based investigation of English online, this study will outline the spelling usage patterns for the aforementioned varieties and will analyse the highly-likely Americanisation process in spelling on the Internet.

Excessiveness in a German Social Media Debate on Gender-fair Language

Gender-fair language is a contested topic in contemporaryGermany. Many reports on the introduction of language changes meantto reduce discrimination result in heated debates in print, online andsocial media.In this article, I qualitatively analyse a selected debate on gender-fairlanguage on Twitter to find out how excessive the language use is andwho makes use of what kind of excessive language. The time frame ofanalysis covers a critical discourse moment in 2018 during which theCouncil for German Orthography for the first time dealt with new gen-der-fair spelling variants. Since the Council, being the only official lan-guage planning institution for German, publishes the official regulationson orthography valid in schools and administrative bodies in Germany,its decision was highly anticipated and disputed.The analysed debate contained only a few argumentative exchangeson the topic. In general, it can be said that Twitter was mostly used to takea stance, not to engage in discussions. The overall style of the debate waspolemic and exhibited many and various instances of excessive languageuse, mostly by opponents of gender-fair language. This group made useof vulgar language, pejoratives and in some cases direct insults. Theyespecially questioned their adversaries’ mental health. Only a few pro-ponents used excessive language when they insinuated a lack of mentalcapacity in their adversaries.

The morphologization of German noun-participle combinations. A diachronic case study

The present paper focuses on the recent history of German noun-participle combinations in which the noun saturates an argument of the base verb. These structures are hybrids between phrases and words, yielding variation in spelling and in the form of the nominal constituent. For instance, the combinations Mitleid erregend vs. mitleidØerregend vs. mitleidserregend ‘pitiful’, lit. “pity-arousing” (where Ø represents a zero morpheme) exemplify such variation, which is a (preliminary) result of (ongoing) language change. Therefore, this paper studies how the noun-participle pattern has diachronically evolved between syntax and word formation since the 18th century. Spelling and nominal forms are used as central indicators. For the latter, two approaches based on verb-valency are introduced. Data from the German Text Archive and DWDS core corpus show that over the past 300 years, noun-participle combinations have undergone a process of morphologization: they are increasingly written as a graphemic unit and take nominal forms that are typical of nominal root compounds. Moreover, this study shows that morphologization is partly supported by high token frequencies of individual types. It is argued that the phenomenon is best characterized by assuming a gradient distinction between syntax and word formation.