typesetting_intro.php

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The prime aim of <strong>Andika!</strong> is to facilitate the production of digital versions of classical Swahili manuscripts, and this section highlights one approach to handling traditional poetry.  My main interest is <span class="sm_swahili">تٖينْزِ</span> (<strong>tenzi</strong>, <em>ballads</em>), so the tools currently focus on that format, but they could be further developed to meet different requirements.  Samples of input and output are shown here, and the process is summarised, but these are not (currently) online tools - to use them you need to download <strong>Andika!</strong> and install a variety of other software on your own PC.
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The first step is to transcribe the manuscript using the <a href="./keyboard.php">Swahili keyboard</a> - see the <em>Input</em> tab.  This input is then imported into a database, where various annotations can be added to individual words.  A transcription is supplied automatically, and an English translation can be added.  The imported text can then be output in a number of formats allowing for both print and online publication - see the <em>Output</em> tab.
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A sample layout of part of <span class="sm_swahili">أُتٖينْزِ وَ ڤِيتَ ڤِكُؤُ</span> (<strong>Utenzi wa Vita Vikuu</strong>, <em>The Ballad of the Great Battle</em>) is given below.  (Click to see a <a href="./poetry/outputs/vita_vikuu.pdf">full-sized copy</a>.)  The <a href="http://www.swahilimanuscripts.soas.ac.uk/perl/Project/showSwahiliItem.pl?ref=MS%20380069a">manuscript</a> is in the SOAS collection, and this extract containing stanzas 138-147 is taken letter-for-letter from a copy of the manuscript.
<img class="caption" src="./images/vita_vikuu.png" width="294" height="345" />
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The storage of the poem contents in a database allows a number of extra tools to be used in analysing the poem - see the <em>Analysis</em> tab.  These include: various word frequency lists (from which a variety of glossaries can be produced), concordances, n-grams, etc.
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