Qglic (pronounced Anglish) is a near-phonemic alternative writing system for English. Being near-phonemic, the goal is to have as close to a one-to-one correspondence between sounds in English and the letters used to represent these. One of the benefits to Qglic is that it attempts to do this using only the letters A through Z. You can see a small sample of it following, which is this paragraph but just written in Qglic.

Qglic iz ey funymik qltrnutiv ruyti'g sistum for I'glic. Byi'g funymik (or nirly so), xu gol iz tu hav ez klos tw ey wun-tu-wun koruspqnduns bitwyn saondz in I'glic and xu letrz ywzd tu reprizent xu saondz. Wun uv xu benufits ti Qglic iz xat it utemps ti dw xis ywzi'g only xu letrz A xrw Z. Yw kan sy u smol sampul uv it fqloi'g, witc iz xis perugraf but dcist ritun in Qglic.

I discovered Qglic a year or so ago, but recently remembered it and became all excited about it again. Using my newly acquired skills in various language technological applications, I spent some time putting together a simple finite-state machine based on the phonemic rules of Qglic, and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which is vast and contains a huge amount of words (approximately 133,000). The CMU Pronouncing Dictionary contains pronunciation guides written with Arpabet, which means it's fairly easy to translate it into IPA or in this case, Qglic.

ABSCOND  AE0 B S K AA1 N D
ABSCONDED  AE0 B S K AA1 N D AH0 D
ABSCONDING  AE0 B S K AA1 N D IH0 NG 
ABSCONDS  AE0 B S K AA1 N D Z
ABSECON  AE1 B S AH0 K AO0 N
ABSENCE  AE1 B S AH0 N S
ABSENCES  AE1 B S AH0 N S IH0 Z
ABSENT  AE1 B S AH0 N T
ABSENTEE  AE2 B S AH0 N T IY1
ABSENTEEISM  AE2 B S AH0 N T IY1 IH0 Z AH0 M
ABSENTEES  AE2 B S AH0 N T IY1

Taking this data, I wrote a short Python script (I'll upload it somewhere at some point soon) to translate the pronunciation guides into Qglic, and then convert them to a format used to produce a file format compatible with the Helsinki Finite State Transducer Technology (HFST):

    abscond:abskqnd         ennd ;
    absconded:abskqndud             ennd ;
    absconding:abskqndi'g               ennd ;
    absconds:abskqndz               ennd ;
    absecon:absukon         ennd ;
    absence:absuns          ennd ;
    absences:absunsiz               ennd ;

It's a very simple finite-state machine, as far as the amount of effort put into producing it. It consists of just a huge list of words in the format of english:qglic, which represents a beginning path and the end path in the machine. The result is very fast: a 385 word article on Naomi Campbell testifying before a war-crimes tribunal from CNN is converted to Qglic in just 0.143 seconds, and the whole of The Importance of Being Earnest translates in about 1.3 seconds.

There are still some issues to work out, such as how I tokenize text, so, punctuation isn't perfect, and thus results in more words not being translated... However, since I'm using the CMU database, there are very few words that don't make it through, and if they don't, it's most likely a result of a tokenization error.

One of the other problems is that words which are homonymous are not handled ideally now (the first homonym is used always), which results in funny spellings when a word is both a noun and a verb ('The farmers prodúce próduce') but used as the other ('*The farmers próduce prodúce.'). Problems like these could be solved with a few more hours of work implementing already existing technologies to disambiguate between the two words based on sentence-sized contexts. If I get a little more time to work on this, maybe I'll iron those problems out and put some of the larger texts up online that are "translated".

Instead, enjoy a couple paragraphs of Naomi Campbell's court case, which has been cleaned up for punctuation issues that I need to fix. Looking through it otherwise, I see there is at least one other issue. See if you can spot it, or find more! ;)

Neyomy Kambul wil testufuy in wor kruymz truyl xrzdey

(cnn) -- Ey dcudc in xu wor kruymz truyl uv formr Luybiryun prezidunt Tcqrlz Teylr haz disuydid xat swprmqdul Neyomy Kambulz testumony in xu keys wil go uhed xrzdey.

Xu specul kort uv Syeru Lyon kunfrmd ti syenen wenzdey xat kambul wil teyk xu stand at xu trubywnul, dispuyt an imrdcunsy mocun xu difens fuyld mundey ti diley hr testumony.

Prqsikywtrz sey Teylr geyv Kambul ey duymund dri'g xu wor in Syeru Lyon, kqntrudikti'g Teylrz testumony xat hy nevr handuld xu precus stonz xat fywuld xu kunflikt.

Interesting occurrance at the University of Helsinki— er, Helsingin yliopisto (I don't want to add to the problem). Translated the original article from Finnish, just drop a comment if there is anything that doesn't flow.

Language planning is always difficult, and I see that they want to bring in a more international crowd... But, there are a few issues: it is just a little ridiculous to reduce the ability of many other students to succeed in their field because there is one person who doesn't speak the language (and I'm assuming they mean one student out of a group of 20, or so). Also, if the program is a majority of Finnish-language speakers, why are they admitting people who cannot speak it? Or, is this just one of those combined programs for Finnish and international students?

Maybe I'm also just grumpy because I like Finnish.

The predominance of English has lead to complaints about the University of Helsinki

Original text: Anniina Wallius

A complaint was sent to the chancellor of justice as a result of the University of Helsinki's language politics. The complaint comes as a result of the university's Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry Science, which has decided that Finnish students must attend all of their courses in English if their is at least one foreign student in their class.

The complaint was made by one of the department's students, who views the language policy as violating a policy in the Finnish constitution. According to the law, Finnish citizens have the right to study in their native language. Finnish language professor Auli Hakulinen supports the complaint.

"Finland only has room for one thought at a time, and now the thought is that of globalization and competition. This is interpreted such, that English should be used in courses at all levels. Let all of the Finnish top researchers write in English, but that's quite a separate issue from basic studies to those, who leave after graduating to go take care of pigs," Hakulinen criticizes.

In her view, the problem results particularly from master's programs, which have now been started in large numbers in both Finnish and English. Taking cost savings into account, these programs are easy to combine, but resultantly if a class of students contains one foreigner, it is determined that the language for everyone should be English.

Another manifestation of the pursuit of internationalization is the universities' English names. The English names have been put before all other names in universities in regions outside of Helsinki.

"The regional universities are meant to serve local needs, but just now they want to be first to show that they are fun and international. For instance, there's the University of Eastern Finland and the Lappeenranta University of Technology. A mere name, however, does not increase the level of the teaching and research," says Hakulinen.

An assault committed against the Finnish language

Hakulinen sees a small spark of hope in the University of Helsinki's strategies, which must be renewed in the coming months because of a new university law. Hakulinen would allow that the new strategies are not just a question of pushing paper, and rather that there is also practical guidance on how to protect the national languages.

To those making university decisions, Hakulinen recommends taking literary translation as a model. According to her, the most purposefully international people in Finland are the translators.

"They are at an outpost, and they take the trouble to think about how the main and best works appearing elsewhere can be translated into Finnish. Culturally they are on a completely different level than the University people, who are committing an assault against their native language," says Hakulinen.

Hakulinen stresses that there is no need to go back to a one mind, one language approach, "A while ago it was a momentary political need, but in reality Finland has never had only one language, nor should it ever have one."

The radio cultural news program also called Marketta Sipi, the dean of the Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry, to hear about the field's language of practice, but Sipi did not have a comment on the issue. The university rector has responded to the complaint made to the chancellor of justice, but the chancellor has not yet given a decision.

Here's some followup from the previous story about the threats of a massacre at Kongsbakken videregående skole in Tromsø. The first is an article in Nordlys, posted Monday (translation following):

New threat against Kongsbakken encouraging people to keep up with the news

On Friday a threat against Kongsbakken was repeated on the forum 4chan.org, according to the newspaper iTromsø. In a discussion thread on the site, someone wrote: "Implying I was kidding when I made that treath. Keep watching the news. I may have been foiled the first time, but time will show my seriousness."

"This sounds very scary, and I'm shocked," said Kongsbakken's Student Council leader, Kristian Støback to iTromsø. He otherwise thought it was good to come back to school to speak with other students and instructors. He believes it is important that the threat does not affect life at school.

Rector Odd Ivar Størkesen was not informed about the new threat on Sunday evening.

"I do not know of any new threat. We have been in contact with the police throughout the weekend and received an update on their work no later than Sunday", he said to iTromsø.

He says that school days rain as normal on Monday.

And another from Nordlys, which was posted Sunday:

Police believe they will find out who was behind the threat to Kongsbakken

So far in the investigation the police have not been able to uncover who is behind the threat to Kongsbakken High School.

"We still have good possibilities to solve the case. Kripos has its own system for mapping who uses the internet illegally. It will take time, but we have good hope of finding the sender of the threats to carry out a massacre at the school, says Tromsø police chief Kurt Pettersen.

He said to Kripos that the police in Tromsø are also driving some of the tactical investigation of the case.

"It is a priority both here and in Kripos to identify all factors surrounding the threat. Kripos has the expertise to identify the technological side, while we here in Tromsø hope the tactical investigation will yield results.

"It could also be someone eventually will realize the seriousness of the matter will report to the police with information," said Pettersen.

As someone who spends a good amount of time reading the news on the internet, I well know what 4chan is. 4chan may be the birthplace of LOLcats and numerous memes that go around the internet, but it's also a cesspool of ridiculousness and shock. It's not too wild of an idea that the original threat may have actually been posted by someone in town, but this follow-up threat was something continued from a random user on 4chan.

As far as the internet intelligence that Kripos is undertaking, I wonder what legal powers they have. Norway is said to have some of the strictest data privacy laws in the world, but it is reasonable that in the interest of investigating crime, Norwegian intelligence agencies may have access to quite a lot of data. If the issue is completely local, there is a good chance they will find out who did it, especially if the perpetrator has no clue what they're doing or how to anonymize their identity on the internet... Norway isn't big, so if they have an IP address, they could much more reasonably find out whose it was than could one in a much bigger country like the U.S.

I wonder what the outcome will be of this, and particularly for 4chan should it manage to be a frequent source of irritation for the police here.

This was the big news today in Norway, and a few people I know around the world have messaged me today asking if I'd heard. So far, I haven't seen any English coverage of the story, so I translated NRK's article on the issue. Added some links for more context for people not familiar with Norway, the culture.

From NRK:

Today, all 650 students at Kongsbakken high school (nor. videregående skole) were evacuated due to a perceived threat of a school massacre posted on the internet. The threat to Kongsbakken high school was aimed at Sámi people. "Scary stuff", said one Sámi student at the school.

The threat was published on Thursday under the title "School massacre" on the American internet forum, 4chan. The principal (rector) at Kongsbakken high school, Ivar Odd Størkersen, was tipped off about the threat by a journalist working at Aftenposten. As such, he immediately contacted the police.

The threat was in the form of an illustration, including a picture of a gun, a sword, the school, and a map of Tromsø. The illustration further contained the text "Targets: Sami people". The threat was later removed from 4chan for unknown reasons.

"We take a connection between weapons and the school building as a serious and severe threat. It is sad that some have felt the need to connect the school with such a serious incident, " said Rector Størkersen to NRK.

"I have no idea why Sámi people are listed as a target. There are many Sámi people in Tromsø, and there are many students with Sámi background who are students at Kongsbakken. I will not speculate on what the purpose of this threat is," said Rector Ivar Odd Størkersen.

Frightening and scary

"It is frightening and scary. Such a threat must be taken seriously," said Mihka Solbakk (18), a Sámi student at Kongsbakken.

Students who arrived at the school this morning were met by police and locked doors. The school management had decided to evacuate all students.

"I believe there are many who are afraid now," said Solbakk.

Mihka Solbakk reports that he has spoken with many of his Sámi classmates today and many of them have expressed that it is frightening that such a threat was directed against Sámi students. He has otherwise not experienced that his ethnic background has been a problem, either at school or in town.

"Of course, you get to hear the occasional derogatory comment here and there."

"Some might joke that Sámi people are inferior, you never really know if anyone believes it. It may even be that this [threat] is meant as a joke," says Solbakk.

Solbakk made it clear otherwise that such threats should be taken seriously, and he thinks that the administration of Kongsbakken has handled the matter in a good way. "There have been a number of school shootings in the U.S. and in Finland in recent months, so it's no wonder that the administration takes these attacks seriously," he says.

Losing sleep

"I received a text message about the threat when I woke up this morning. Obviously I was a little scared," said Odd Ivar Solbakk, Mihka Solbakk's father.

His son was still sleeping when the message about the threat came, and so he would not be to school until after lunchtime. Odd Ivar Solbakk said to NRK Sámi Radio that news that the threat was directed against Sámi people was a special piece of news to hear at the crack of dawn.

"Tromsø is a city with many prolific Sámis and the Sámi people are very important here. It has never seemed as if there were a threat to the Sámi youth in the city," said Solbakk.

As a parent of a student at the school, Solbakk was proud of the way the school administration and the police have handled this matter. Having learned the full extent of the situation, he says he is impressed with the response and feels the school's forthrightness is something that characterizes a good school environment. He is also impressed.

"A threat so close to us as this is something that would interfere with sleep; it's unpleasant," says Odd Ivar Solbakk.

Investigating the matter

Police chief Truls Fyhn in the Troms Police Department said in a press release that an investigation has been initiated to get more information from the site that the threat was posted to, after the police were made aware of the case on Thursday night.

"The investigation is still continuing," he wrote.

Kripos is also involved in the investigation," said Tromsø police chief, Kurt Pettersen.

School administration at Kongsbakken expects that school will resume as normal beginning on Monday. Later today, the police will have a meeting with the principal and the others in the school administration to inform them of the investigation.

Listen to interviews

• in Norwegian: Interview with Mihka Solbakk
• in North Sámi: Jearahallan Mihka Solbakkain
• in North Sámi: Jearahallan Odd Ivar Solbakkain

Read more news on NRK

• Afraid and scared
• The schools shall be safe

My own thoughts

This is hugely surprising news. On one hand, 4Chan (see Wikipedia if you don't know what it is) is full of ridiculous things and so this may have been a joke, but on the other hand, with recent school and mall shootings in Finland and the U.S., one can never be sure. I have not observed much anti-Sámi discrimination or racism here in Tromsø, aside from errant comments people make that are mostly just stupid, but then I'm not Sámi, and I haven't lived here for more than 6 months, so I know basically nothing. The history of Sámi-Norwegian relations as I know it hasn't been pretty, but things are otherwise much much better now.

Some added context is that Kongsbakken (King's Hill) is a fairly prestigious, arts-oriented, and more liberal-minded school.

I'm hoping this was all just a joke, but it looks like it's gotten damn serious.

Updates

More English-language news is available here, from My Little Norway.