UTX-Simple Specification Version 1.00
0. Document information●Owner: AAMT Sharing/Standardization Working Group
http://www.aamt.info/english/utx/●Status: preliminary●Last updated: November 10, 2009
All Rights Reserved, Copyright (C) AAMT, 1996-2009

1. Introduction
The goal of UTX-Simple (UTX-S) is to create from a user's viewpoint a simple, easy to make, easy touse dictionary that can be used by machine translation systems. The same UTX-S dictionary can beused by different manufacturers' translation software. In addition, a UTX-S dictionary is human-readable,
and can be used as a glossary that does not involve translation software at all.
When a user of translation software makes the effort to prepare user dictionaries, they are fragmented
and dispersed, and thus not effective. Also, even a simple plain text file is difficult to share or to reuse,
unless its format is standardized. However, if a single UTX-S standard is adopted, shared dictionaries
can be used widely across various tools, such as translation software from different manufacturers, andare also highly reusable.

1.1. Target users
UTX-S is specifically designed to be used by end users of translation software, or translators. UTX-S
does not require any advanced technical knowledge of linguistics, grammar, or machine translation
software etc. to create or use. UTX-S can be made from a minimum of data for both source and target
language.

1.2. Target domains
UTX-S can be used in any domain, but should be specific to some subject or topic, such as ICT,medicine, law, or engineering. Ideally, a domain should be highly specific, such as “Ruby (scriptinglanguage),” “cardiovascular surgery,” etc. UTX-S may not be suitable for translation of non-specialized,
general contents.

2. Specification
2.1. UTX-S fileA UTX-S file should be encoded in UTF-8 (without BOM). Its new line code is “\r\n” (CR+LF). The fileextension is “.utx.”
A UTX-S file consists of a header and a body:
1. A descriptive header (lines 1 & 2)
2. The actual entries (tab delimited text)
Entries can be commented out by placing “#” at line start.

2.2. UTX-S header
A UTX-S header consists of two lines that begin with “#.”-1-

2.2.1. First line of a UTX-S header
The first line consists of necessary information about the UTX-S file, delimited by semicolons. It isspecified as follows:#UTX-S <version>; < source language >/< target language>; <date created>; <optional fields (creator,license, etc.)>- UTX-S version is currently 1.00.
- Source language/target language: ISO 639, 3166 formats.
In the case of monolingual dictionary, target language should be omitted.
- Date created: ISO 8601 format- Optional fields (creator, license, etc.)

Example 1:#UTX-S 1.00; en-US/ja-JP; 2009-08-10T14:28:00Z+09:00; comment: This isan example of UTX-S header.
Example 2:#UTX-S 1.00; en-US/fr-FR; 2008-03-15T10:00:00Z+09:00; copyright: AAMT(2008); license: CC-by 3.0

2.2.2. Second line of a UTX-S header
The second line of UTX-S header consists of three mandatory columns, followed by optional userdefined columns, separated by tabs:

2.2.2.1.

Mandatory columns- First column: #src: contains words in the source language- Second column: tgt: contains words in the target language- Third column: src:pos: contains parts of speech for words in the source language.
UTX-S has following parts of speech:
noun / properNoun / verb / adjective / adverb / sentence
Refer to the section “2.4 Part of speech” for details.

2.2.2.2.

Optional columns

The fourth column and all additional columns are optional; a user can define as much information as
he/she wants to. Additional columns can be described as the following:- in the case of defining some form of the source language word: src:some_information- in the case of defining some form of the target language word: tgt:some_information
For English, the following symbols denoting some_information are pre-defined:
plural: plural form
3sp: third-person singular form
past: past tense form
presp: present participle form
pastp: past participle form
comparative: comparative form
superlative: superlative form

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In the case of monolingual dictionary, information on the target language can be left blank.
A hyphen “-“ is used to indicate that a property does not exist for the word in a particular language. For
instance, as the English word “information” has no plural form, you may specifically use “-” to indicate it.

Example:#src tgt src:pos src:plural src:3sp
src:comparative src:superlative

src:past

src:pastp

src:presp

2.3. UTX-S bodyA UTX-S body consists of one or more entries. An entry is in a tab-delimited format. The first, second,
and third columns are mandatory fields. A UTX-S body can also contain one or more comments,followed by an initial “#.”

2.3.1. First column (mandatory)
A word in the source language.

2.3.2. Second column (mandatory)
A word in the target language.

2.3.3. Third column (mandatory)
The part of speech of a source language word.

2.3.4. Fourth and the following columns (optional)
User defined attributes.

2.3.5. Comments
A comment line begins with “#.”

2.4. Part of speech
Only the following parts-of-speech should be used:noun
properNoun
verb
adjective
adverbsentence
If the part of speech is unknown then leave it blank: “ ”.
sentence should only be used when necessary; entries of pairs of translated sentences should be
stored in a translation memory.

-3-3. UTX-Simple guidelines
3.1. General guidelines
In general, a UTX dictionary should only contain technical terms of a specific domain. In most cases,
entries are nouns, especially compound nouns. Translation accuracy can be improved by collecting,sharing, and reusing the data of fine-tuned bilingual translations which are not included in translation
software out-of-box. Sentences should not usually be included in a UTX dictionary, except when it isappropriate to treat them as a kind of "words." As a rule, UTX should be separated from translation
memory, which is a bilingual database of sentences, rather than words.
For example, a word like "XML declaration" can be correctly translated into its Japanese equivalent,"XML 宣言" by just registering it in a user dictionary. Basic vocabulary like "window" should not beincluded, because such a word is already contained in the system dictionaries of translation software.
- Add only one translation for each entry.
- Avoid words in the system dictionary.
- Define the domain of the dictionary clearly.
- The basic form of word should be entered (singular form for a noun, root form for a verb - as you
would see in a commercial dictionary).
- Any comments should be noted separately in the comment field, not as a part of the entry.
- Choose only the single, most appropriate translation corresponding to a source word. If it has
multiple DISTINCTLY different meanings, they can be treated as separate entries.
- Do not add words that are dependent on a specific MT.
- Alphabets and numbers should be written in single-byte characters, not multi-byte characters.
- Do not use ellipsis (…) to indicate a variable within an entry.
- Do not add any comments directly in a mandatory field; add a comment by either adding a comment
column in the dictionary table or by adding a comment line that begins with “#.”

3.2.

Guidelines particular to the English language- Always begin an entry with a small letter (except proper nouns).
- Do not contain articles such as “a”, “an” and “the,” except in the special case that it is a part of aproper noun.

3.3.

Guidelines particular to the Japanese language 半角カタカナなど機種依存文字は使用しない。
 サ変動詞は「する」で終わる。例：強調する
 形容動詞は「な」で終わる。例：静かな 音引きは省略しない。例：ユーザー、セキュリティー、コミュニティー
 中黒(middle dot)は省略しない。もしくは半角スペースで代用する。
すでに定着しているものを除き、カタカナ語、和製英語は避ける。

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