Understanding (and automatically working with) Ukrainian vocabulary entries

Joshua Enslin

Both md's importer as well as musdb feature some functions for automatically parsing entered actor, place, time and tag names. Thus far, these are limited to German and Hungarian. It would be great to do the same with Ukrainian.

First, let me start with a quick overview of the most relevant functionalities:

Blacklist

Some terms are running contrary to the general concept of the vocabularies that they are fully blacklisted. Usually these are terms that describe the absence of any information:

"Unknown"
"Unspecified"
"Unknown artist", etc. (actors)
"Without year" / "Without date" / "No date" (times)
"Without place" / "No place" (places)

Identifying statements of uncertainty

Uncertainty about e.g. creators is expressed using a dedicated field in events. Most other collection management systems don't feature such a field, not to speak of solutions like Excel... Thus, imports often come with time names like "Around 1921" or "1921 ?". The same applies to actors and places.

When new actors, places and times are entered in either musdb or through imports, terms like "about", "likely" or trailing question marks are automatically stripped from the entered name and instead taken to indicate uncertainty. Hence, if one enters "1921?" as a new time for an event in musdb, the system can automatically recognize that it's actually 1921 that's being referred to. The flag for uncertainty about the reference to the time entry is automatically activated.

Parsing and rewriting times

Different from places and actors, time names have more or less uniform forms per language. Time entries may be a full date (November 15, 1921), a year (1921), or a range of years (1921-1925). But either way the list of different formats is rather short.

Time entries can thus often be parsed to automatically identify start and end dates etc. and generate translations.
To do so, we use lists of commonly used terms for times like

Month names (both full [April] and abbreviated [Apr.])
Terms like "BC" / "CE" / "AD"
Names or name components for set categories of time spans (e.g. "er Jahre" in German: 1920er Jahre = 1920s). Or "th century".
Words like "until" or "after"

It would be great if we could do the same with Ukrainian. Maybe we can use this thread to gather relevant terms to do the same with new entries in Ukrainian.

Ekaterina Malygina

Dear Joshua,

thanks for starting such an important topic! Terms that describe the absence of any information in Ukrainian would be:
"Невідом" - * as a substitute for masculine, feminine and neuter endings
"Не визначен" - * as a substitute for masculine, feminine and neuter endings
"Невідомий артист" тощо (виконавці)
"Без року" / "Без дати" / "Не датовано", "Без датування"
"Без місця" / "Без місця" (місця)

Statements of uncertainty: Приблизно, около, неточно, орієнтовно, близько, коло, майже.

Is there any list with the commonly used terms that can be translated (other than already stated)?

Btw, for all interested, here is an article on data structure for controlled vocabularies in Ukrainian (based on md:Handbuch): https://blog.museum-digital.org/uk/2023/09/13/введення-особистостей-часів-місць-і-к/

Joshua Enslin

Hi Ekaterina,

thanks! I've now added those. Let me just paste the code, it's just simple arrays anyway and should be fairly easy to read.

For each type of entry (actor, place, time) we have three basic categories:

Fully disallowed terms (these can also be entered via nodac during cleanup, so this is certainly the least important category
Prefixes for indicating uncertainty ("Maybe " as in "Maybe Berlin")
Suffixes to do the same (" (maybe)" as in "Berlin (maybe)")

I hope I entered the Ukrainian terms in the right categories.

Actors

    const PERSINST_INDICATORS_DISALLOWED = [
        "Unbekannt",
        "unbekannt",
        "Anonymus",
        "Anonym",
        "n.n.",
        "N.N.",
        "Künstler, unbekannt",
        "Unbekannte Person",
        "Unbekannter Maler",
        "Unbekannter Künstler",
        "nicht benannt",
        "nomen nominandum",
        "Nomen Nominandum",
        "ismeretlen",
        "Ismeretlen",
        "ismeretlen.",
        "Ismeretlen.",
        "ism.",
        "невизначена",          // "Uncertain" (ukr)
        "невизначений",         // "Unspecified" (ukr)
        "не встановлено",       // "Not established" (ukr)
        "Невідом",              // Unknown
        "Не визначен",          // Not determined
        "Невідомий артист",     // Unknown artist
    ];

    const PERSINST_UNCERTAINTY_PREFIXES = [
        "verm. ",
        "Verm. ",
        "vermtl. ",
        "Vermtl. ",
        "vermutl. ",
        "Vermutl. ",
        "vermutlich ",
        "Vermutlich ",
        "wahrscheinlich ",
        "Wahrscheinlich ",
        "wohl ",
        "Wohl ",
        "?",
    ];

    const PERSINST_UNCERTAINTY_SUFFIXES = [
        "(?)",
        "?",
        " [vermutlich]",
        " [verm.]",
        " [wahrscheinlich]",
    ];

Times

    const TIME_INDICATORS_DISALLOWED = [
        "Nachgewiesen",
        "nachgewiesen",
        "o.D.",
        "O.D.",
        "o.J.",
        "O.J.",
        "o. D.",
        "O. D.",
        "o. J.",
        "O. J.",
        "Ohne Datum",
        "ohne Datum",
        "Ohne Jahr",
        "ohne Jahr",
        "Unbekannt",
        "unbekannt",
        "ismeretlen",
        "Ismeretlen",
        "Neu",
        "Neu hergestellt",
        "zeitl. nicht faßbar",
        "Без року", // Without a year
        "Без дати", // Unknown artist
        "Не датовано", // Not dated
        "Без датування", // No dating
    ];

    const TIME_UNCERTAINTY_PREFIXES = [
        "c. ",
        "ca ",
        "ca. ",
        "Ca ",
        "Ca. ",
        "za. ",
        "~",
        "circa ",
        "gegen ",
        "um ",
        "Um ",
        "verm. ",
        "Verm. ",
        "vermtl. ",
        "Vermtl. ",
        "vermutl. ",
        "Vermutl. ",
        "vermutlich ",
        "Vermutlich ",
        "vermutlich um ",
        "Vermutlich um ",
        "wohl ",
        "wohl um ",
        "Wohl ",
        "Wohl um ",
        "Приблизно",  // UK: About / approximately
        "близько",    // UK: About
        "около",      // UK: About
        "коло",       // UK: About
        "неточно",    // UK: Inaccurate
        "майже",      // UK: Almost / nearly / about
        "орієнтовно", // UK: approximately
    ];

    const TIME_UNCERTAINTY_SUFFIXES = [
        "(?)",
        "?",
        " (ca.)",
        " [ca.]",
        " (circa)",
        " [circa]",
        " (verm.)",
        " (vermutl.)",
        " körül",
        ", um",
        " (um)",
    ];

Places


    /**
     * Substrings used to express uncertainty about the validity of a place name.
     */
    const PLACE_INDICATORS_DISALLOWED = [
        "Unbekannt",
        "unbekannt",
        "Unknown",
        "unknown",
        "keine Angaben",
        "Keine Angaben",
        "nicht benannt",
        "ohne Angabe",
        "Ohne Angabe",
        "Ohne Ort",
        "ismeretlen",
        "Ismeretlen",
        "ism.",
        "o.O",
        "versch. O.",
        "o. O.",
        "Diverse O. u. o.O.",
        "o.O.",
        "Без місця", // No place
    ];

    const PLACE_UNCERTAINTY_PREFIXES = [
        "ca ",
        "ca. ",
        "circa ",
        "evtl ",
        "evtl. ",
        "vlt. ",
        "verm. ",
        "vermut. ",
        "vermtl. ",
        "vermutl. ",
        "Vermutl. ",
        "vermutlich ",
        "vermutlich: ",
        "Vermutlich ",
        "Vermutlich: ",
        "wohl ",
        "Wohl ",
        "wahrsch. ",
        "Wahrsch. ",
        "wahrscheinlich ",
        "Wahrscheinlich ",
        "можливо",
        "?",
    ];

    const PLACE_UNCERTAINTY_SUFFIXES = [
        "(?)",
        "(vermutl.)",
        "[vermutl.]",
        "(vermutlich)",
        "[vermutlich]",
        "(wohl)",
        "[wohl]",
        "?",
    ];

Ekaterina Malygina

Hey Joshua,

you've done a great job, thank you!
I've added just a few small indicators:

Actors

    const PERSINST_INDICATORS_DISALLOWED = [
        "Unbekannt",
        "unbekannt",
        "Anonymus",
        "Anonym",
        "n.n.",
        "N.N.",
        "Künstler, unbekannt",
        "Unbekannte Person",
        "Unbekannter Maler",
        "Unbekannter Künstler",
        "nicht benannt",
        "nomen nominandum",
        "Nomen Nominandum",
        "ismeretlen",
        "Ismeretlen",
        "ismeretlen.",
        "Ismeretlen.",
        "ism.",
        "невизначена",          // "Uncertain" (ukr)
        "невизначений",         // "Unspecified" (ukr)
        "не встановлено",       // "Not established" (ukr)
        "невизначено",       // "Not established" (ukr)
        "Невідом",              // Unknown
        "невизн",               // Unknown
        "Не визначен",          // Not determined
        "Невідомий артист",     // Unknown artist
    ];

    const PERSINST_UNCERTAINTY_PREFIXES = [
        "verm. ",
        "Verm. ",
        "vermtl. ",
        "Vermtl. ",
        "vermutl. ",
        "Vermutl. ",
        "vermutlich ",
        "Vermutlich ",
        "wahrscheinlich ",
        "Wahrscheinlich ",
        "wohl ",
        "Wohl ",
        "?",
    ];

    const PERSINST_UNCERTAINTY_SUFFIXES = [
        "(?)",
        "?",
        " [vermutlich]",
        " [verm.]",
        " [wahrscheinlich]",
    ];

Times

    const TIME_INDICATORS_DISALLOWED = [
        "Nachgewiesen",
        "nachgewiesen",
        "o.D.",
        "O.D.",
        "o.J.",
        "O.J.",
        "o. D.",
        "O. D.",
        "o. J.",
        "O. J.",
        "Ohne Datum",
        "ohne Datum",
        "Ohne Jahr",
        "ohne Jahr",
        "Unbekannt",
        "unbekannt",
        "ismeretlen",
        "Ismeretlen",
        "Neu",
        "Neu hergestellt",
        "zeitl. nicht faßbar",
        "Без року", // Without a year
        "Без дати", // Unknown date
        "Не датовано", // Not dated
        "Н.д.", // Not dated
        "Без датування", // No dating
        "б.р.", // No dating
        "б.д.", // No dating
    ];

    const TIME_UNCERTAINTY_PREFIXES = [
        "c. ",
        "ca ",
        "ca. ",
        "Ca ",
        "Ca. ",
        "za. ",
        "~",
        "circa ",
        "gegen ",
        "um ",
        "Um ",
        "verm. ",
        "Verm. ",
        "vermtl. ",
        "Vermtl. ",
        "vermutl. ",
        "Vermutl. ",
        "vermutlich ",
        "Vermutlich ",
        "vermutlich um ",
        "Vermutlich um ",
        "wohl ",
        "wohl um ",
        "Wohl ",
        "Wohl um ",
        "Приблизно",  // UK: About / approximately
        "близько",    // UK: About
        "около",      // UK: About
        "коло",       // UK: About
        "неточно",    // UK: Inaccurate
        "майже",      // UK: Almost / nearly / about
        "орієнтовно", // UK: approximately
        "Прибл.", // UK: approximately
    ];

    const TIME_UNCERTAINTY_SUFFIXES = [
        "(?)",
        "?",
        " (ca.)",
        " [ca.]",
        " (circa)",
        " [circa]",
        " (verm.)",
        " (vermutl.)",
        " körül",
        ", um",
        " (um)",
        " (ок.)",
    ];

Places


    /**
     * Substrings used to express uncertainty about the validity of a place name.
     */
    const PLACE_INDICATORS_DISALLOWED = [
        "Unbekannt",
        "unbekannt",
        "Unknown",
        "unknown",
        "keine Angaben",
        "Keine Angaben",
        "nicht benannt",
        "ohne Angabe",
        "Ohne Angabe",
        "Ohne Ort",
        "ismeretlen",
        "Ismeretlen",
        "ism.",
        "o.O",
        "versch. O.",
        "o. O.",
        "Diverse O. u. o.O.",
        "o.O.",
        "Без місця", // No place
        "не вказано", // No place
        "не вказане", // No place
        "невідоме", // No place
    ];

    const PLACE_UNCERTAINTY_PREFIXES = [
        "ca ",
        "ca. ",
        "circa ",
        "evtl ",
        "evtl. ",
        "vlt. ",
        "verm. ",
        "vermut. ",
        "vermtl. ",
        "vermutl. ",
        "Vermutl. ",
        "vermutlich ",
        "vermutlich: ",
        "Vermutlich ",
        "Vermutlich: ",
        "wohl ",
        "Wohl ",
        "wahrsch. ",
        "Wahrsch. ",
        "wahrscheinlich ",
        "Wahrscheinlich ",
        "можливо",
        "?",
    ];

    const PLACE_UNCERTAINTY_SUFFIXES = [
        "(?)",
        "(vermutl.)",
        "[vermutl.]",
        "(vermutlich)",
        "[vermutlich]",
        "(wohl)",
        "[wohl]",
        "?",
    ];

Joshua Enslin

Hi Ekaterina,

great! Thank you!
I've added those to the list as well now.