The Tawasol symbol website has been available for the last two months for beta testing. There are still many updates and fixes to be done but now the site has been submitted to Google and can be found by searching for Tawasol Symbols!
We have been keeping statistics and since October with us all working on the site there are some figures to share. 684 views with 38% coming from new visitors and 62% returning visitors. The visitors come from the following countries:
| Country | Sessions | % Sessions | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. |
 United Kingdom |
62 |
52.54% |
| 2. |
Qatar |
31 |
26.27% |
| 3. |
United States |
16 |
13.56% |
| 4. |
Saudi Arabia |
4 |
3.39% |
| 5. |
Brazil |
2 |
1.69% |
| 6. |
France |
1 |
0.85% |
| 7. |
Ireland |
1 |
0.85% |
| 8. |
Japan |
1 |
0.85% |
There have been 21 downloads of symbol files from the home page, with more downloads occurring in Arabic compared to English. Many of these will have been test situations so 12 downloads came from UK, 7 from Qatar and 2 from USA:
| Event Label | Total Events | % Total Events | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. |
Arabic zip
|
12 |
57.14% |
| 2. |
Arabic rar
|
6 |
28.57% |
| 3. |
English zip
|
3 |
14.29% |
We are still building the dictionary and the only entries seen on the Tawasol symbol website are those entries that have both Arabic and English lexical concepts. The Symbol Dictionary Management system has many more entries that still require work.
The individual words or phrases can be searched or browsed via category selections and depending on the language chosen once the symbols appear they can be selected to see more information and their links to other symbols of similar meaning or in the opposing language. So a search for ‘camel’ will bring up the English choice that then offers the choices in Arabic.
Search for ‘camel in English to see the selection offered
Select the camel that you want to see with further information relating to that lexical entry
You are now viewing the Arabic lexical entry with the available information if you are using the English side of the website
The Arabic side of the website provides the user with a similar view.
In the coming months there will be over 500 Arabic / English lexical entries (with their appropriate symbols) being the most commonly used words in both languages for AAC use and spoken and written language learning. These words and phrases will be a combination of lists collected from AAC users in both languages and those words collected by external researchers and published as the most frequently used words in both languages gathered from speakers and written works.