Frequently Asked Questions

1. Question: May I ask the sources of translations in NTI reader?

   Answer: I arrive at the English equivalents myself by comparing as many sources as I can find or translating directly if there are only Chinese sources. You can find links at the bottom of each page to the list of references for Buddhist entries used at References. Note that some sources allow direct copying, including those out of copyright due to age and those shared under a Creative Commons

   license.

   The NTI Reader uses a system of abbreviated citations in the notes field for each entry, which are listed in full in the Abbreviations page. The references for general entries are at the Chinese Notes References page. The FGS sources are listed at the HB Reader References page.

   The references for most entries are listed in the notes. However, there are many entries with no citations. I created those at an early stage of the NTI Reader and am gradually adding the references. For the quotations from English translations of canonical texts, I list myself as the translator to make it clear that I have not copied from the published translation. For example, 夫宗極絕於稱謂.

   - Alex Amies 2021-03-17

2. Question: What is the NTI Buddhist Text Reader?

   Answer: See the About page.

3. Question: Who are the target users for the reader?

   Answer: See the Goals here.

4. Question: How do I use the reader?

   Answer: See the Help page for general help in using the reader and dictionary and the page Translation of Chinese Buddhist Texts with the NTI Reader for help in a translation workflow context.

5. Question: Is this a Chinese-English dictionary?

   Answer: Yes. The project started out as a generic Chinese-English dictionary and works OK for general use. A full Chinese-English dictionary is used to assist in analyzing corpora of Chinese Buddhist texts without the reader having to switch between a literary Chinese-English dictionary and a Buddhist Chinese dictionary.

6. Question: Can I copy stuff from the NTI Reader?

   Answer: Yes, if you attribute the source appropriately. You should attribute the source of the data to the NTI Buddhist Text Reader under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License license.

7. Question: How can I add words to the dictionary or join the project?

   Answer: Please do. Send an email to [email protected] with the words and a reference of where you got them from. To join the project send an email with your GitHub id and a note introducting yourself to [email protected].

8. Question: What is a dictionary entry?

   Answer: Headwords dictionary entries can be a word, a freqently occurring phrase, or the name person, place, or organization, with a mapping to another languages. The mappings supported today are Chinese to English and Sanskrit to Chinese with English. Because of the search capabilities the dictionary can be searched in reverse order and for complete phrases as well. The body of dictionary entries includes a list of word senses and how the word is used in the texts forming the corpus.

9. Question: Is this a research project?

   Answer: The NTI Reader is more of a sequence of experiments than a coherent research project. The project has evolved through personal study, use in volunteer translation at Fo Guang Shan, and academic study.

10. Question: What are the current issues and problems with the NTI Reader?

    Answer: There are a number of issues listed in the Github repository issues folder. One fairly major issue is that Siddhaṃ characters and images cannot be displayed in the NTI Reader. This is discussed in detail in issue 5 Special Text, Image Elements and Nonstandard Layouts.