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From: "Herb Caudill" <herb@ibamba.net> To: <info@webfuuta.site> Subject: Teddungal mo'on Date: Tue, 30 Nov 1999 18:40:49 -0000 M. Bah, I am writing to say that I am tremendously impressed by the contribution you have made through the fuuta-jalon.net website. This site is a tremendous resource and a monument to Fulbhe culture, and it is clear that it required a great deal of work on your part. I was a Peace Corps volunteer in the prefecture of Maali; I am currently working with USAID's Leland Initiative in Conakry (see my work for more information). In my spare time I am working to provide computer support to a group of Pular scholars at the University of Conakry who are developing a dictionary : - Dr. Mamadou Saliou Diallo - Dr. Alfa Mamadou Diallo - Dr. Abdourahmane Diallo - Alfa Kona Balde - etc. I have also just met with Barry Evans, a British missionary linguist who has written a dictionary and a teaching grammar, who you may know. What I would like to facilitate is a web-enabled collaborative dictionary project, modeled after the open-source software concept. I would like to help consolidate and harmonize the various existing dictionary projects, and then publish the unified dictionary on the web so that the worldwide community of Fulbhe, along with Pular scholars in different countries, can contribute additions, corrections, and other modifications. These would be considered by an authoritative working group, which would reconcile the contributions and use them to refine the finished project. I would appreciate any advice that you might have for this project. I am looking for possible sources of funding for computer equipment and Internet connections for the local-languages department of the University of Conakry Please let me know if you are aware of any groups that are working to support Internet-enabled preservation of linguistic diversity, please let me know. I may be in Washington in January or February, and I would be honored to meet you while I'm there, if that is still where you are living. Yo Allahu yobhitu golle mo'on dhen. Yo Allahu bheydu gandal. Herb Caudill a.k.a Mamadou Aliou Diallo mo Maali |