Autocaptioning and Autocorrect
These mistakes are entertaining, but they also lead to comprehension problems and make it impossible for some people – especially those with hearing impairment – to participate fully in the online service experience.
Similarly, the autocorrect functions on phones and computers sometimes lead to funny or embarrassing mistakes, such as Gnat charisma tova instead of Gmar chatima tova (greeting/closing exchanged between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur), clam habaneros instead of olam haba (the world to come), and Baruch Satan emergency instead of Baruch dayan emet (blessed is the true judge, said after hearing news of a death).
Tech companies have the ability to address these issues, and the Jewish Language Project would like to help. We maintain a database of over 1600 words used by Jews in English. We are in the process of adding recordings for each entry and making them available to tech companies. This will also be useful for anyone wondering how certain words are pronounced.
In the meantime, individuals can address the autocorrect issue by adding frequently used words to their devices' dictionaries. For example, on an iPhone, you can do this in Settings => General => Keyboards => Text Replacement => +. Then you add words or phrases (including adding shortcuts if you'd like), such as:
balagan
boker tov
Chag sameach
chametz
lulav
refua shlema
Shabbat shalom
shavua tov
yasher koach
Another part of this project is correcting Hebrew and Yiddish words in video transcripts. Synagogues and other organizations that have accounts on video or transcription platforms (especially YouTube and Otter.ai) can edit their transcripts within their accounts. These corrections will not only make the transcripts more accurate, they will also improve the companies' future captions.
The following is a short list of people who have expressed interest in being contacted for their services in providing Jewish captioning. If you are interested in reaching out to them, please indicate you were directed by the Jewish Language Project.
The Jewish Language Project is looking for more volunteers to assist with this important work, including:
1. Connecting to the relevant people at various tech companies
2. Making audio recordings of words and sentences
3. Assisting synagogues and other Jewish organizations with YouTube or Otter.ai accounts in correcting their transcripts or allowing a volunteer to do so
4. Financial contributions
If you're able to help with these or other tasks, please click the appropriate button below.
Read about this in the press:
