Dag Bavel¶
This is a project that was dreamt up many years ago, with a somewhat functional earlier version made in 2020. The basic idea is that when working through a text, the same roots pop up over and over again, either in repeated or different forms. There are also all the common prepositions and other connecting words that crop up constantly when working through any text. I would spend a lot of time trying to find my notes from when I had encountered something before rather than reparsing and looking up again. What I wanted was to make my notes match the connections my brain was already making. In the peak pandemic era (and when Twitter was still good), I saw a professor offering a brief class over Zoom that introduced the Python programming language and how it can be used for humanities research, especially in language analysis. It sounded like fun so I signed up.
Once I had some understanding of the tools, I developed Dag Bavel* , a text based program that could keep track of all the basic parsing information and save that to a file. I used that program for a few translating projects and while it was useful for doing the work, its saving options left a lot to be desired. Since that time I have developed several more projects that made better use of data storage, printable outputs, and a graphical user interface.
Dag Bavel allows the importing of a raw text file, which it then breaks up into words. Each word is presented and allows for the entry of a root, the dictionary page, and an inside and outside translation, as well as an interface for adding vowels. Words and roots can be searched within a document, or the user can save words to a dictionary that From there the user can break up words into phrases and write translations at a phrase level. With supporting files it is possible to find biblical quotations and both import whole verses and map the pointed version of individual words onto the text in progress. It is also possible to setup a work file straight from a verse/chapter/book when the translation project is biblical.
When ready, the data for all the words and all the phrases can be combined into a printable PDF file that can be used on screen or printed as a booklet.
Current Status¶
I have been using this software extensively for a while, but I sometimes need to open up the working files and correct things manually since some aspect of the interface is buggy or does not have the ability to correct the particular issue.
The mapping of words into phrases is flawed but steadily improving. The PDF output works but needs some refinement, especially around areas where text should be broken up. The original interface for adding words to the the dictionary meant going to each word one by one, but an interface to search a file for words that are not in the dictionary and quickly add them is actively being developed. |
The most critical step of development that hasn't really been touched is making the program run for end users on a variety of computer types, and making sure that all the components work in different environments. I have some ideas about this, but am trying to have a fully functional version running rather than trying to port something with known issues. The PDF export piece is of particular concern here since it relies on outside software.
Reach out with the contact form if you would like to get email updates about Dag Bavel.
________
* I find it endlessly fascinating that in Bereshit, Bavel is described as the site where humanity's languages splintered, but the Talmud Bavli is the site of my (and I assume many other people's) unification with language.
Babel crops up as a word referring to language scrambling frequently. The radio series "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" and subsequent novel invented a creature called a babel fish to explain how characters from different planets can understand each other in science fiction. The name has been adopted for many projects over the years, including the text translation tool developed by Yahoo. Since it's a fun play on words to use "bavel" in a piece of software which can be used for translating from the Bavli, and Hebrew students learn early on that "he is she, who is he, and dog is fish", I thought דג בבל would be a good name. I did check and the book has been translated into Hebrew and uses this term for the creature…