About Say Hello To the World

The Say Hello to the World Project was created by Lorri Mon, a graduate student at the University of Michigan's School of Information as a resource for the Youth Division of the Internet Public Library. Kate Montgomery, a graduate student at the School of Information, created the pages for Braille and Sign Language. Joan E. Smith of the University of Michigan signed the words on the Sign Language pages. (Thanks also to Professor Sandy Bartlett, whose Java class at the School of Information made the sign language pages possible.)

The goal of this project is to bring together language resources on the Internet into one convenient place for beginners who would like to learn more about languages from all over the world.

Since language is such an integral part of culture, an attempt was made to include cultural information to give learners a context and appreciation for the countries and people speaking the language.

Sound files were also included to give beginners help in learning the languages. However, it's important to note that the current Say Hello soundfiles were not recorded by native speakers. Future plans include re-recording the soundfiles using both male and female native speakers, as well as expanding the number of languages covered within the project.

We had to take the sound files down in the summer of 2006 due to complaints from native speakers about pronunciation. We hope soon to put up a new site or a similar site that rectifies this problem.

Thanks for visiting the Say Hello to the World Project!