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 Azerbaijan gained its independence, our alphabet based on Latin script was restored; consequently, at the beginning of the process the youth with an education based on the alphabet with Latin script started to face a problem of an access to the rich literary heritage translated into our language for many years. It is true Ilham Aliyev, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan signed an order on the publication through Latin script of the books formerly printed in Cyrillic; consequently, the publication of the most significant books was organized. However, if we take into account the fact that the books, journals and newspapers published in the Soviet period and the translations presented in them are thousands in number, then the significance of creating at least relevant bibliographic database of these works becomes more obvious.

Also, Azerbaijan’s integration to the world brings about new realities. Unlike the Soviet period, now the literary works are translated into Azerbaijani directly from the original. The developed education system in the country, the qualitative teaching of foreign languages and some other factors have generated a new and strong generation of translators.

 

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.