Tips on Using the Gleaner's Project Language Links
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When viewing foreign language webpages, keep in mind, that
you may have to change your browser's Encoding and/or Font settings
and you may even have to download new fonts and install them yourself.

To find Learning links or Reading links for:

. Specific Languages
. Specific Alphabets or Scripts
. Dictionaries for Specific Languages

About the Gleaner's Language Links Pages:

. Frames Version of the Gleaner's Project
. Project Links -- Where They Open
. Project Links -- How They are Worded

If You Are Having Problems with Certain Llinks:

. JavaScript Issues
. Java Issues









 
Tips to find Learning links or Reading links for specific languages:

1. The following sections may have specifically indexed listings for that language:

Learning: Gleaner's Links: Ancient Languages
Learning: Gleaner's Links: Modern Languages (Index)
Reading:  Gleaner's Links: Literatures, Poetry, & Song
Reading:  Gleaner's Links: Proverbs
Reading:  Gleaner's Links: Religious Texts (original & translated)

2. The following two sections present links to multi-language web sites that may have information on your language of interest. The Gleaner's Project lists most of these multi-language web sites only in these two sections. You should take take a look at them.

Learning: Gleaner's Links: Multilanguage Learning Sites
Reading:  Gleaner's Links: Multilanguage Literature Sites

3. Remember that languages are known by different names and that language names don't always match country names. (Let me restate that: most language names make no reference to the countries they are spoken in; in addition, though you may know a language by some name -- say, X -- it is usually a mistake to assume either that the native name bears any resemblance to that name, or that the language has a similar name in other languages. For an example, see here.)

a. Some languages are listed here under more than one name. For instance, White Russian, Byelorussian, and Belarussian or Lett, Lettish, and Latvian or Little Russian, Ruthenian and Ukrainian. The point is to help you find useful information as quickly as possible, without making judgements about the appropriateness of one name or the other.

b. Some languages, like Bosnian, Serbian, and Croatian are grouped together because though the people who speak them often consider them separate languages, they are in fact very close dialects with high levels of mutual comprehension. The differences between them are more in variant pronunciation and variant vocabularies than in variant grammar -- like the differences between British English and American English.

c. A comparative list of language names, placenames, and ethnic names will eventually be added to the Gleaner's Project. Such a page would answer questions like:

What is the French language called --

in French? in German? in Russian? in Japanese?
What is France called -- in French? in German? in Russian? in Japanese?
What are the French people called (as a group) -- in French? in German? in Russian? in Japanese?.
What is a French individual called -- in French? in German? in Russian? in Japanese?

d. A handful of languages may also be listed by their native names as a courtesy to those who've been encountering these names on the internet. For instance, many people would like to know what languages Brezhoneg, Magyar, Suomi, and Shqip are.


 
To find links for specific alphabets or scripts: Information about the alphabet or script of a language, is likely to be found in the Alphabet, Pronunciation, or Grammar, subcategories in that language in one of the Learning sections that list specific languages. But you should also look in Gleaner's Links: Modern Alphabets and Syllabaries... and in Gleaner's Links: History of Writing Systems , both of which have a few additional links for some alphabets.
 
To find dictionary links for specific languages: If you're looking for dictionaries, you should look under the specific language you have in mind. But you should also look in the Polyglot Vocabularies / Dictionaries section of the Gleaner's: Multi-language Learning Sites page, where you will find links to sites that have multiple dictionaries for multiple languages.
 
About the frames version of the Gleaner's Project: The frames version of The Gleaner's Project is intended to make a Table Of Contents continually present, from which to browse the Project's various subsections. The table of contents also shows that the Learning: Modern Languages section is distributed among several sub-categories called Modern groups, each with its own page.
 
About the Project's links -- where they open: Links to pages outside The Gleaner's Project open-up in a separate browser window, and all such links should open up in that same window -- though some Korean and Hebrew web pages seem to interfere with this pattern. Some of the Gleaner's links are for directly downloadable files which need to be saved to your computer before opening and you may get a message asking you what folder on your computer to save these files in. Also, Netscape sometimes has difficulty downloading files that end in ".ttf" (uncompressed, TrueType Font files) . If Netscape doesn't ask you where you want to save "ttf" files, then the download probably hasn't occurred correctly.
 
About the Project's links -- how they are worded: Most of the links provided in The Gleaner's Project are worded to match the current title bars of the pages they link to. For example, click on the following link and then look at the title bar of the window that it opens up in: Letter database: languages, character sets, names etc. The wording of this specific link and the wording on the title bar are probably the same. Some link names, however, have been reworded or shortened for various reasons, while others have wording taken from older versions of the same web pages. And other links have no wording at all -- instead they use the web page's address (URL) because the web page has no wording in the title bar.
 
JavaScript (is not Java): You might find a few links to pages that don't seem to open-up right -- these links might open-up to a totally blank page, or to a page with a blank frame, or to a page that feels like it's dead because it does not respond to any clicking or reloading. Turning JavaScript on (or off) might fix the problem. (Also, even though JavaScript is not the same as Java, a similar issue may arise with web pages which require that Java be turned on.)

If your browser's settings do not offer specific "JavaScript" choices, then you may need to tinker with whatever "Script", "Scripting", "Script debugging", or "ActiveX", settings that may be available on your browser. (Some browsers even seem to put JavaScript and Java settings together, so you may have to change "Java" settings to make JavaScript work. )

In addition, some web pages are made / created / coded / written so that they work only with Netscape or only with Internet Explorer. So you may need to try both of these browsers before you are able to view some web pages correctly.


 
Java (is not JavaScript): Web pages that require Java (which is not the same as JavaScript) are entirely avoided by the Gleaner's Project because web users with older computers or with computers on slower connections would be significantly affected by such links. Java does cause significant delays in downloading and processing of web pages, even on newer computers . If you find a link here to a page that requires Java, please notify H.D. bli blarg at scribitmihi@yahoo.com. When browsing through language web sites, you may save yourself a lot of frustration by turning Java off on your browser and computer. Home