ICSLS 2005

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Translation of a Given Simple English Sentence into its Equivalent in Sinhala using a Speech Synthesizer
(University of Kelaniya, 2005) Wickramasinghe, R.I.P.; Kumara, H.M.; Dias, N.G.J.
Machine Translation (MT) or Automatic Translation is generally concern about automating all or part of the process of translating one human language to another language. These human or natural languages bear similarities as well as differences due to the way these languages have organized. Therefore, translating from one natural language into another natural language depends on their vocabulary, grammar, and conceptual structure. The translation Text-To-Speech (TTS) can be considered as the automatic production of speech, through a grapheme-to-phoneme transcription of the sentences to utter. To our knowledge there is no such a system in Sri Lanka that could translate simple English sentences into its equivalent in Sinhala with the relevant speech synthesis. In a country like Sri Lanka where the language barrier is a major issue, this type of systems will definitely help to reduce these language problems. With language translation coupled with TTS synthesis would be a good Computer Aided Learning Technique, that will provide a tool to learn English effectively. This paper discusses an approach to translation with a speech synthesizer of a given simple English sentence into its Sinhala equivalent. The problem of translation is handled in two phases, namely the lexical selection, where appropriate target-language lexical items are chosen for each source-language lexical item and then the lexical reordering, where the chosen target-language lexical items are arranged to produce a meaningful target language string. Together with translator, here we use the concatenative synthesizer which is embedded in the speech units to be chained up. In our speech synthesizer, speech units that are typically smaller than words are used to synthesize speech from arbitrary input text. Speech units are algorithmically extracted from a phonetically transcribed speech data set. The unit selection process involves a combinatorial search over the entire speech corpus using the search algorithms. Due to the practical difficulties and complexities this translation and TTS is tested only for the simple English sentences in which only SVO (Subject/Verb/Object) structure can be seen.
Portuguese Expansion - Prime Motives
(University of Kelaniya, 2005) Chandrasoma, R.
In Sri Lanka, the Portuguese strategy evolved over the years. At first the motive may have been innocuously commercial and it can be argued with some factual backing that the marauding Arabs were held back by the advent of European imperial power in South Asia. The Sinhala nation was in an enfeebled and spiritless state and the cruel and crafty Portuguese quickly realized that there was territory for the taking with little expenditure of manpower. It is good to recall at this point that the 16th and subsequent centuries (we are speaking of the European nations) were marked by unparalleled brutality – both secular and ecclesiastical. Killing of opponents was a trifling matter. Killing the heathen was regarded as a religious duty in an age when human beings had no rights if they refused to conform. In such an age, the Portuguese held the first place in the league table for cruelty and it is our historic misfortune that they crossed our shores at a time of declining fortunes for the people of this ancient land. They had a reputation for the sadistic delight they took in torturing their victims – both human and animal. They – like their compatriots in the West – were experts in perfidy, double-dealing and lying when negotiating with weak native rulers. Is it a great surprise when it turned out that the ‘traders and friends’ were really loathsome killers of our people and exterminators of our civilization? That the Portuguese should never be pardoned for the ravaging of our towns, the destruction of our temples, the brutal conversion of an unsophisticated citizenry and the heartless massacre of innocents in the name of a God and Sovereign that the people of this Island had neither heard of or cared for is unarguable. However, the blame must be rightly apportioned. The lack of a fighting spirit among the Sinhala people, the adulation of the Fair-Skinned European, the infighting and unprincipled clinging to power of those who called themselves the leaders of the Sinhala nation and the gross neglect of the rights of the ordinary people made Sri Lanka a weak and vacillant nation-state at the mercy of ruthless predators. Isolated acts of heroism have little meaning when cowardice and pacifism are the reigning motifs in an economically weak and forlorn land – a land then and now without friends. The Portuguese battered on the door when the ancient religion (Buddhism) was at a low ebb and it is a mere freak of history that we escaped the bleak stranglehold of Catholicism.

ICSLS 2005

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