to glean -- vt. (on the internet) to gather bits and pieces of information from various sources, and organize them for your own use.
gleaner -- n. (on the internet) a person who gleans from the internet.
The Gleaner's Project -- because somebody had a project to do: to glean whatever useful bits and pieces of language grammar that were available on the internet for various languages.
The Gleaner's Language Links can be found at both of the following addresses -- which lead to the same exact location. The shorter address is just a newer version of the longer address:
1. http://www.oocities.org/scribitmihi/langlinks/index.html
2. http://www.oocities.org/WallStreet/Bureau/8759/langlinks/index.html
The main aim of The Gleaner's Language Links Pages is to provide links to all the free language learning and reading material on the web that's useful to capable language learners who speak English. Links are also provided to free material written in other languages as well -- especially in Chinese, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Japanese, Norwegian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Swedish. This is done, partly because it is known that many of the people who use The Gleaner's pages are in fact native speakers of these other languages, and partly because a "capable" language learner is likely to be someone who can already read several of these other languages -- in which a lot of very good material is written. Why use English as the sole learning medium when there is material available in these other languages too? Even if you don't know these languages, you may still be able to make use of some of these sites, because their pages are often structured in an easy to understand format.
The aim is also to specifically sub-categorize Learning links, so that, whenever possible, each language will have subcategories such as Alphabet, Pronunciation, Grammar, and so forth.
The Project provides links to specific web pages that present actual material (or that present clear and uncluttered indexes to the actual material), rather than to multi-purpose or multi-topic front-pages, which often provide information that is not directly relevant to learning the actual language. The main motivation in this is to reduce the amount of time you spend searching for specific material on specific languages, and to reduce the amount of time you waste looking at irrelevant material. The one major exception to this "web pages rather than front pages" rule is the two Multi-language sections which provide links to the front pages of web sites that present information about multiple languages:
1. Gleaner's Links: Multi-language Learning Sites
2. Gleaner's Links: Multi-language Literature Sites
If you have a link you would like included in these pages, send an email to scribitmihi AT yahoo DOT com. You may not receive an emailed response, but you can be sure that the link will be researched and evaluated. The Gleaner is interested in expanding the number of links for languages referred to by some as "Less Commonly Taught Languages" (LCTLs) or "Lesser Used Languages" (LULs) -- that is, languages not commonly taught or spoken outside their home countries; regional and minority languages from around the world; especially languages that may have no official status or support from any government.
If you would like to bookmark a specific page or section of this website,
feel free to; you are welcome to; go ahead.