Tsadra Lotsawa Workbench Project

The Lotsawa Workbench is an initiative of the Tsadra Foundation research department. Currently, this is just a test and we welcome any comments and suggestions. We hope to invite collaboration from users and stakeholders from Dharma groups as well as academia. Please contact us if you are interested in developing this project with us: research AT tsadra DOT org.

PILOT PROJECT

This project will develop the current Dharma Dictionary into a flexible Lotsawa Workbench that provides contextual examples and information beyond a standard dictionary, as well as direct links to as many online resources as possible for each term.

As a full-fledged workbench for translators working on Tibetan literature, canonical or autochthonous, this translation platform integrates data from the main textual and lexicographical online resources into a collaborative environment. This new tool will combine dictionaries, translation memories, corpus analysis, e-texts, and scholarship databases to document the meaning, usage, and textual occurrences of dictionary terms across various corpora of Tibetan texts.

We hope that this new resource will contribute to a better environment for the translation and transmission of Buddhist literature in Tibetan.

A Community Project

Experienced translators and scholars will be able to add content via clearly defined and easy-to-use forms and the dictionary will continue to develop into something more and more useful. The original content will always be available on a page for anyone from the community to edit, preserving the original openness of the project.

Create Curated Semantic Spaces

A Modular Approach:

Phase One: Linking

1. Link headwords (WIKI PAGENAMES) to existing online databases on each Dictionary Term Page.
2. Develop FORMS for adding detailed content to Dictionary Term Pages.

Phase Two: TMs

1. Integrate existing translation memories (TMs).
2. Create new TMs from Tsadra translators.
3. Fixing Dictionary Issues and Updating Terms

Phase Three:Text Analytics

1. Develop text analytical tools for lexical work