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Pronunciation Map


Disclaimer

This essay does not describe an existing computer program, just one that should exist. This essay is about a suggested student project in Java programming. This essay gives a rough overview of how it might work. I have no source, object, specifications, file layouts or anything else useful to implementing this project. Everything I have prepared to help you is right here.

This project outline is not like the artificial, tidy little problems you are spoon-fed in school, when all the facts you need are included, nothing extraneous is mentioned, the answer is fully specified, along with hints to nudge you toward a single expected canonical solution. This project is much more like the real world of messy problems where it is up to you to fully the define the end point, or a series of ever more difficult versions of this project and research the information yourself to solve them.

Everything I have to say to help you with this project is written below. I am not prepared to help you implement it; or give you any additional materials. I have too many other projects of my own.

Though I am a programmer by profession, I don’t do people’s homework for them. That just robs them of an education.

You have my full permission to implement this project in any way you please and to keep all the profits from your endeavour.

Please do not email me about this project without reading the disclaimer above.

The basic idea is you collect a database of sound clips (e.g. MP3) of how varyious people pronounce various words at various places in time and place. You create a map that organises these samples into a tree of similarity. You can then click on various parts of the tree to hear how various pronunciations evolved over time and space. The difficult part is persuading sample speakers from all over the world to provide you with samples. You will probably do best if you can pull it off with a Java Applet, rather than rquiring your contributors to create individual MP3 files for you.
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