Greetngs All,

 

One of the sample collections I have uses Samoan Language.

 

Samoan language uses punctuation (glottal stops) to assist with pronunciation.  An example is <Fa‘a‘aimago> and this is not an uncommon structure.

 

My issue is that this use of apostrophes near renders Greenstone’s search capabilities as useless.  Searching for the sample word above:

1. If you search “Fa’a’aimago” you end up with all “a”, plus all “fa”, plus all “aimago” listed in the search results (Greenstone uses punctuation as a separator).
2. If you search “Faaaimago” you end up with zero search results. (Greenstone cannot recognize the de-punctuated word)

 

I know that it is possible for Greenstone to handle this correctly, because it is done for Hawaiian glottal stops in the Ulukau collections (http://www.ulukau.org).  I have tried to make contact with them, but have received no responses.

 

Has anyone worked with any other language that creates this type of issue? 

 

 

Thanks,

 

Colin Murfett