{"id":13497,"date":"2017-11-01T06:04:45","date_gmt":"2017-11-01T06:04:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/?p=13497"},"modified":"2017-11-01T06:04:45","modified_gmt":"2017-11-01T06:04:45","slug":"mit-haiti-google-team-boost-education-kreyol","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/mit-haiti-google-team-boost-education-kreyol\/","title":{"rendered":"MIT-Haiti, Google team up to boost education in Krey\u00f2l"},"content":{"rendered":"

Institute-led effort to create STEM lexicon is now available for global translation.<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
Google has teamed up with Michel DeGraff\u2019s Kreyol-based STEM education project in Haiti, to add Kreyol to Google Translate.
Image: MIT News<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. —\u00a0In recent years, MIT scholars have helped develop a whole lexicon of science and math terms for use in Haiti\u2019s Krey\u00f2l language. Now a collaboration with Google is making those terms readily available to anyone \u2014 an important step in the expansion of Haitian Krey\u00f2l for education purposes.<\/span><\/p>\n

The new project, centered around the MIT-Haiti Initiative, has been launched as part of an enhancement to the Google Translate program. Now anyone using Google Translate can find an extensive set of Krey\u00f2l terms, including recent coinages, in the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) disciplines.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn the past five or six years, we\u2019ve witnessed quite a paradigm shift in the way people in Haiti talk about and use Krey\u00f2l,\u201d says Michel DeGraff, a professor of linguistics at MIT and director of the\u00a0MIT-Haiti Initiative<\/a>. \u201cHaving Google Translate on board is going to be another source of intellectual, cultural, economic, and political capital for Krey\u00f2l,\u201d he notes, adding that the project will aid \u201canyone in the world now, if someone is interested in producing text in Krey\u00f2l from any language.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The concept behind the project is straightforward. In Haiti, most education, especially technical education, traditionally has been conducted in French, even though Krey\u00f2l is the native language of virtually all Haitian citizens. DeGraff, a native of Haiti, has long believed that Krey\u00f2l should be a more central part of Haitian classroom education, and that native Krey\u00f2l speakers would fare better academically and socioeconomically if it were.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 2013, MIT and Haiti signed a joint initiative to promote education in Krey\u00f2l, in coordination with several Haitian universities and educational institutions. DeGraff has said that the project is intended to help Krey\u00f2l-speaking students \u201cbuild a solid foundation in their own language,\u201d by using Krey\u00f2l to translate digital learning tools for STEM topics and to develop related educational resources, including lesson plans, learning modules, evaluation instruments, and more.<\/span><\/p>\n

As part of the project, DeGraff and other colleagues in the MIT-Haiti Initiative, including STEM-focused faculty in Haiti, have developed new STEM-oriented coinages in Krey\u00f2l, to help extend the scope of the language in technical fields.<\/span><\/p>\n

For instance, consider the English word \u201ctorque,\u201d meaning the rotational force applied to an object. Paul Belony, the leader of the physics team for the MIT-Haiti Initiative, came up with a new translation of it in Krey\u00f2l: the word \u201ct\u00f2day,\u201d taken from the Krey\u00f2l verb, \u201ct\u00f2de,\u201d which refers to wringing out wet clothes, in the process of washing them. The wringing action is a visual example of torque in action, and the term derives from a verb that is common knowledge in Haiti.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a new technical term,\u201d DeGraff says. \u201cIt\u2019s not at all what\u2019s used in French for \u2018torque,\u2019 but it creates an image all Haitians will know, and then once you go into the physics of it, you can explain it in a way that makes sense.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Another example involves translating the English word \u201clikelihood.\u201d Although often used as a colloquial synonym for \u201cprobability,\u201d it does not have the same technical meaning in math. In an effort to avoid this kind of confusion in Krey\u00f2l, MIT-Haiti scholars have tried new terms for \u201clikelihood,\u201d currently using the Krey\u00f2l word \u201cpanchan\u201d (which translates as \u201cleaning\u201d), a suggestion made by Haitian psychologist and statistician Serge Madhere.<\/span><\/p>\n

To be sure, as MIT mathematics lecturer and MIT-Haiti member Jeremy Orloff observes, \u201cthe final Krey\u00f2l term has not been fixed.\u201d Still, he adds, when a new word for \u201clikelihood\u201d does become settled in Krey\u00f2l, it figures to be \u201ca big improvement on the unhelpful legacy from French or English,\u201d which will help to avoid the conflation of \u201clikelihood\u201d and \u201cprobability.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Those are precisely the new kinds of word that appear in the lexicon available through Google Translate. And while those terms are now being used in education programs within Haiti, their integration into Google\u2019s powerful translation tool means they \u201cwill be re-usable by anyone with an interest in producing Krey\u00f2l materials,\u201d as DeGraff puts it.<\/span><\/p>\n

The collaboration between MIT-Haiti and Google is also an important step forward, as DeGraff sees it, in terms of adding new stakeholders to the project of disseminating Krey\u00f2l widely.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt sends a message that we can no longer be stopped by this belief that Krey\u00f2l is not for science,\u201d DeGraff says. \u201cThat\u2019s the key, because we feel we are at this tipping point where more and more people are accepting the language, at the highest levels of science and math education, and most everywhere else in Haitian society, and even outside Haiti \u2014 for example, right here in Boston where a new dual language program in English and Krey\u00f2l is being launched by the Boston Public Schools system.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The MIT-Haiti Initiative has received funding from the U.S. National Science Foundation, MIT, the Wade Foundation, and the Open Society Foundation. Since the initiative\u2019s inception in 2010, partner institutions in Haiti have included the Krey\u00f2l \u00a0Kominot\u00e8 Mat\u00e8nwa, the State University of Haiti, Universit\u00e9 Cara\u00efbe, \u00c9cole Sup\u00e9rieure d\u2019Infotronique d\u2019Ha\u00efti, Universit\u00e9 Quisqueya, NATCOM, the Foundation for Knowledge and Liberty, Haiti\u2019s Ministry of National Education and Professional Training, Haiti\u2019s Prime Minister\u2019s Office, the U.S. Embassy in Haiti, and S\u00fbrtab.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Institute-led effort to create STEM lexicon is now available for global translation. CAMBRIDGE, Mass. —\u00a0In recent years, MIT scholars have helped develop a whole lexicon of science and math terms for use in Haiti\u2019s Krey\u00f2l language. Now a collaboration with Google is making those terms readily available to anyone \u2014 an important step in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":13498,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-other","category-social-science"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/MIT-Kreyol-Google_0.jpg",639,426,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/MIT-Kreyol-Google_0-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/MIT-Kreyol-Google_0-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/MIT-Kreyol-Google_0.jpg",639,426,false],"large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/MIT-Kreyol-Google_0.jpg",639,426,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/MIT-Kreyol-Google_0.jpg",639,426,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/MIT-Kreyol-Google_0.jpg",639,426,false],"ultp_layout_landscape_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/MIT-Kreyol-Google_0.jpg",639,426,false],"ultp_layout_landscape":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/MIT-Kreyol-Google_0.jpg",639,426,false],"ultp_layout_portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/MIT-Kreyol-Google_0.jpg",600,400,false],"ultp_layout_square":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/MIT-Kreyol-Google_0.jpg",600,400,false],"newspaper-x-single-post":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/MIT-Kreyol-Google_0.jpg",639,426,false],"newspaper-x-recent-post-big":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/MIT-Kreyol-Google_0.jpg",540,360,false],"newspaper-x-recent-post-list-image":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/MIT-Kreyol-Google_0.jpg",95,63,false],"web-stories-poster-portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/MIT-Kreyol-Google_0.jpg",639,426,false],"web-stories-publisher-logo":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/MIT-Kreyol-Google_0.jpg",96,64,false],"web-stories-thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/MIT-Kreyol-Google_0.jpg",150,100,false]},"author_info":{"info":["Amrita Tuladhar"]},"category_info":"Other<\/a> Social Science<\/a>","tag_info":"Social Science","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13497\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}