Creating a multi-language dictionary of Earthquake Early Warning

Abstract

Quick response is required when Earthquake Early Warning is issued; however, it is not easy for foreigners to understand and take immediate actions against these messages because of the difference of culture, background and language. It is desirable to provide disaster management information in multiple languages and a multi-language dictionary will be useful for this aim. This paper describes detailed procedures for the creation of a multi-language dictionary for Earthquake Early Warning messages: Step #1. making a Japanese word list used in the original messages; Step #2. converting the words, especially technical terms, to plain ones; Step #3. selecting corresponding English expressions; Step #4. making a Japanese-English dictionary with the plain Japanese terms and English expressions; Step #5. creating a multi-language dictionary for Earthquake Early Warning messages from the Japanese word list prepared at Step #1. using the plain terms and the Japanese-English dictionary as reference. Points to note in the process are also explained in detail so that this paper will be of help in creating multi-language dictionaries for other kinds of disaster management information.