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New technology improves syllabics on the web

"We want to make sure people using older computers aren't missed"

SARA MINOGUE

A small Iqaluit company has found a hassle-free way to put Inuktitut syllabics online.

"Up until now you always had to download fonts, and if you didn't have the right font, you couldn't access the information," says Gavin Nesbitt of Attavik.net.

"Most people would just ignore the Inuktitut text and they wouldn't access it at all."

Now, he says, it's possible to guarantee that anybody with a computer and Internet access can read and print syllabics from Inuktitut web sites.

A prime example of the new technology can be at the new website of the Office of the Languages Commissioner of Nunavut, at www.langcom.nu.ca.

Visitors to the site are no longer prompted repeatedly to download a special font to view the Inuktitut. Instead, new technology on the Attavik web server takes care of the font problem, with no extra effort by the user required.

It works like this: Every time someone visits a web page hosted by Attavik, it is filtered through a piece of software called Glyphgate, created by Swedish company em2 Solutions.

Glyphgate automatically performs a check of the user's browser, and then decides what it needs to do to make Inuktitut syllabics visible on that particular computer.

If the computer cannot already display Inuktitut syllabics, Glyphgate will create a quick fix. One fix is to create a temporary font specifically for that user.

"If you're on a Mac," Nesbitt says, "you can see this visibly. It will actually show a bunch of random characters and then switch them to syllabics."

The other fix — if your computer technology is really ancient — is for Glyphgate to convert all of the Inuktitut words to tiny images that are displayed as one big picture.

Current efforts designed to help people use Inuktitut online generally rely on brand new technical standards, governed by obscure international bodies, which means that people working in Inuktitut generally need to have the latest equipment and fonts on their computers.

This allows people to type and print syllabics, and copy and paste syllabics from different programs.

"To people working in Inuktitut, that's fine," Nesbitt says. "But if you're somebody in Pond Inlet using Mac OS 8 with Internet Explorer 4 or something, you probably aren't going to be able to read most of the web sites that are online right now.

"We want to make sure that people who are using older computers aren't missed."

Attavik.net was founded about a year ago, as a partnership between the Pirurvik Centre, a language and cultural consultancy Nesbitt runs with Leena Evic, and a Toronto-based non-profit web hosting service called Web Community Resource Networks.

The Pirurvik Centre's interest was mainly driven by the desire to give Inuktitut "the same options that other languages have online," Nesbitt says.

However, the Attavik.net system has also proved to be a flexible, easy-to-use mechanism for companies or groups to create and maintain web sites in multiple languages, as many Nunavut organizations do.

With just 10 minutes of training, Nesbitt says, Languages Commissioner Eva Aariak can update Inuktitut text online, a major change from most Inuktitut web sites.

"Right now, it's pretty much the norm that web sites are out of date," Nesbitt says.

The word "Attavik" translates roughly to mean "foundation," and is a short version of "Inuttitut Qarasaujalirinirmut Attavik," which means, "setting a base for Inuktitut computing."

A number of other groups are already using the technology, including the Municipal Training Organization, which has won rave reviews.

The Languages Commissioners' Office, appropriately, is the first to actively promote the technology with the launch of their site.

"The easier it is to put Inuktitut on the web, and the easier it is for users to get Inuktitut on the web, the better it is for the language," says Jonathan Dewar, public affairs officer for the OLC.

Attavik.net is now open for business. Prospective customers should visit www.attavik.net for more information.

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