Refugee Phrasebook is an online collection of useful vocabulary and phrases for refugees who have recently arrived in various European and potentially other host countries. Published as

open source software Open-source software (OSS) is computer software that is released under a license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and distribute the software and its source code to anyone and for any purpose. Open ...

, it is a

multilingual Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. More than half of all E ...

tool that provides basic useful vocabulary related to the most common immediate needs of refugees and their helpers. As of early 2022, it provides phrases in more than 28 languages, including Arabic,

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

, Turkish, Dari, Bosnian, Albanian, English, German, Hungarian and others. In order to support refugees having to communicate in new linguistic situations, everyone is free to adapt, print and distribute pairs of translated important phrases in basic everyday situations.

Description

Refugee Phrasebook was started by women with immigrant backgrounds in Berlin, Germany, in the context of the arrival of hundreds of thousands refugees in 2015. It is an open collaborative project to provide basic vocabulary to refugees. It assembles important phrases from various fields and encourages designers and experts in the field to improve on the material. While the first collection of phrases was limited to a closed document with a narrow focus, volunteers quickly migrated the data to an open table in

Google Sheets Google Sheets is a spreadsheet program included as part of the free, web-based Google Docs Editors suite offered by Google. The service also includes: Google Docs, Google Slides, Google Drawings, Google Forms, Google Sites and Google Keep. Google ...

and significantly increased the number of participants with their network. This step also emphasized a commitment to transparency and openness by publishing the data with a

Creative Commons license A Creative Commons (CC) license is one of several public copyright licenses that enable the free distribution of an otherwise copyrighted "work".A "work" is any creative material made by a person. A painting, a graphic, a book, a song/lyrics ...

(CC0), reuseable for refugee aid projects everywhere. Due to translation requests from helpers, the length of the tables has more than tripled since the beginning. As of early 2022, the phrases now include a broad range of topics, from a simple “Hello” to “ I need to see a doctor”, covering a general set of phrases as well as sentences for juridical and medical needs. Local initiatives are welcome to adapt, print and distribute all contents of the project's page to support refugees in all regions. It currently contains vocabulary in 28 languages: * Refugee Phrasebook (orientation / multipurpose) currently >561 items in >44 languages * Medical Phrasebook currently 150 items in 28 languages, ca. 80% translated * Juridical Phrasebook ''currently looking for lawyers to contribute'' Prompted by the

2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, which began in 2014. The invasion has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths on both sides. It has caused Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II. An ...

, Refugee Phrasebook added useful phrases in

Ukrainian Ukrainian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Ukraine * Something relating to Ukrainians, an East Slavic people from Eastern Europe * Something relating to demographics of Ukraine in terms of demography and population of Ukraine * So ...

, English and languages of host countries such as German,

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent * Polish chicken *Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin screenwr ...

and Slovakian. The project is noncommercial, the books are available for free and provided without further political or personal branding. The content is freely available under a Creative Commons License (CC0) and can be reused by anyone everywhere. Supported by the

Open Knowledge Foundation Open Knowledge Foundation (OKF) is a global, non-profit network that promotes and shares information at no charge, including both content and data. It was founded by Rufus Pollock on 20 May 2004 in Cambridge, UK. It is incorporated in England an ...

Germany, the project is coordinated by the Berlin-based support group “Refugee Phrasebook“ and is constantly expanded by numerous volunteers, among them

Wikimedia Deutschland Wikimedia chapters are national or sub-national not-for-profit organizations created to promote the interests of Wikimedia projects locally. Chapters are legally independent of the Wikimedia Foundation, entering into an agreement with the founda ...

. Further, it does not claim ownership of the content, since it is a

crowdfund Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising money from a large number of people, typically via the internet. Crowdfunding is a form of crowdsourcing and alternative finance. In 2015, over was raised worldwide by crow ...

ed effort. Detailed and updated information about the project as well as printable versions of the phrasebooks for different regions are published as ''Refugee Phrasebook'' at

Wikibooks Wikibooks (previously called ''Wikimedia Free Textbook Project'' and ''Wikimedia-Textbooks'') is a wiki-based Wikimedia project hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation for the creation of free content digital textbooks and annotated texts that any ...

Recognition

Refugee Phrasebook was recommended in March 2022 as a useful tool for digital translation next to

Google Translate Google Translate is a multilingual neural machine translation service developed by Google to translate text, documents and websites from one language into another. It offers a website interface, a mobile app for Android and iOS, and an API t ...

and

Microsoft Translator Microsoft Translator is a multilingual machine translation cloud service provided by Microsoft. Microsoft Translator is a part of Microsoft Cognitive Services and integrated across multiple consumer, developer, and enterprise products; including B ...

by the German website Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland. According to

Creative Commons Creative Commons (CC) is an American non-profit organization and international network devoted to educational access and expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has release ...

, the project has spread all over Europe, attracting global press such as

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

Wired ''Wired'' (stylized as ''WIRED'') is a monthly American magazine, published in print and online editions, that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquartered in San Fra ...

Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly online news magazine co-owned 50 percent each by Dev Pragad, its president and CEO, and Johnathan Davis (businessman), Johnathan Davis, who has no operational role at ''Newsweek''. Founded as a weekly print m ...

, STERN magazine,

Die Zeit ''Die Zeit'' (, "The Time") is a German national weekly newspaper published in Hamburg in Germany. The newspaper is generally considered to be among the German newspapers of record and is known for its long and extensive articles. History The ...

, and

Der Spiegel ''Der Spiegel'' (, lit. ''"The Mirror"'') is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. With a weekly circulation of 695,100 copies, it was the largest such publication in Europe in 2011. It was founded in 1947 by John Seymour Chaloner ...

, as well as winning the

Prix Ars Electronica The Prix Ars Electronica is one of the best known and longest running yearly prizes in the field of electronic and interactive art, computer animation, digital culture and music. It has been awarded since 1987 by Ars Electronica (Linz, Austria) ...

“Award of Distinction” for Digital Communities.

References

External links

Official webpage

Open Facebook page
of Refugee Phrasebook * Wikimedia Blog Refugee Phrasebook: Building an open, multilingual phrasebook for refugees who just arrived
List of phrasebooks for English and several languages of the world
by the Cultural Orientation Resource Center in Washington, D.C.
Blog by Nine Yamamoto-Masson on the beginnings of Refugee Phrasebook
{{DEFAULTSORT:Refugee Phrasebook Refugees Forced migration Translation websites

Description

Recognition

See also

References

External links