THE PROJECT ON CREATION OF A TEXTUAL DATABASE FOR THE DEVELOPMENT AND CODIFICATION OF THE AZERBAIJANI LANGUAGE
Financial support
The project was financed by Azerbaijan University of Languages and UNESCO at the recommendation of Azerbaijan National Commission for UNESCO.
Project Duration:
1 December 2007 – 31 March 2008
Responsible organization and partners
The project was jointly operated by “Sonmaz Mashal” Cultural Relations Public Union and the UNESCO Chair in Translation Studies and Intercultural Communication. It was undertaken in close collaboration with the staff of “Azerbaijan International”, the Centre for Literary Translation and Literary Relations, the Writers’ Union of Azerbaijan, the Bibliography Department of the National Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan as well as some other organizations involved in literary translation issues in our country (Khazar University Library and Information Center, “Dunya edebiyyati” journal, “Xazar” journal etc).
Description of the project
The project emerged as a follow-up to the International Conference on Future Aspects of Translation, Interpretation and Terminology in Azerbaijan in the New Global Context (Baku, 3-7 May 1999) and the International Conference on Translation and Transnational Processes (Baku, 14-15 April 2005) at the Azerbaijan University of Languages sponsored by UNESCO both of which discussed lexical and grammatical codification of the national language, the development of the phraseology and terminology of our language as well as creation of electronic catalogue of translated literature from and into Azerbaijani among other significant issues.
It is well known that the early translations from and into Azerbaijani go back to the ancient times. However, much greater successes were achieved in the field of translation during the 70-year Soviet period when the most precious pieces of world literature were translated into Azerbaijani. After
Also,
The accelerated development of information technologies as well as Azerbaijan’s integration to the world processes have created preconditions for the formation of new terminology in all domains, which, in its turn, has led to the development and further enrichment of the Azerbaijani language.
All these issues have necessitated the creation of a database for the development and codification of the Azerbaijani language, thus the implementation of the project.
Purpose and objectives of the project
The project was aimed at creating a bibliographic catalogue of works translated from Azerbaijani into foreign languages (Russian, English, German, French, Arabic and Persian) as well as from foreign languages into Azerbaijani for the last 30 years, especially in the years of independence.
Besides, a mini library has been created which comprises full electronic texts of the works translated in recent years. Also, a catalogue of the research works on translation written in 1920-2007 in Azerbaijan as well as an electronic library of full electronic texts of recent researches have been created, which will be at the disposal of specialists conducting research in translation in future.
Alongside with all this data, the site also includes bilingual and multilingual terminological dictionaries (terms of literary criticism, a dictionary of geographical names, a dictionary of acronyms, etc), data on grammars of different languages, special articles on the history of translation from the aforementioned 6 languages into Azerbaijani and of translation in the reverse direction.
“THE EXPANSION OF THE E-DATABASE FOR THE PURPOSE OF DEVELOPMENT AND CODIFICATION OF AZERBAIJANI LANGUAGE”
In 2009 SONMAZ MASHAL realized the project “Expansion of the e-database for the purpose of development and codification of Azerbaijani language” under the financial support of the Support Council to Non-Government Organizations under the President of Azerbaijan Republic and the Azerbaijan University of Languages.
The website including the first bibliograhical e-database in the field of translation in Azerbaijan, has been given into the usage of the users since April, 2008.
The preliminary version of the website was created under the financial support of UNESCO and Azerbaijan University of Languages.