<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">------------------------------------------------------------------------<br>Arabic-L: Mon 17 Jan 2011<br>Moderator: Dilworth Parkinson <<a href="mailto:dil@byu.edu">dil@byu.edu</a>><br>[To post messages to the list, send them to arabic-l@byu.edu]<br>[To unsubscribe, send message from same address you subscribed from to<br><a href="mailto:listserv@byu.edu">listserv@byu.edu</a> with first line reading:<br> unsubscribe arabic-l ]<br><br>-------------------------Directory------------------------------------<br><br>1) Subject: Announcing Arabic Etymological Dictionary Project<br><br>-------------------------Messages-----------------------------------<br>1)<br>Date: 17 Jan 2011<br>From: <<a href="mailto:stephan.guth@ikos.uio.no">stephan.guth@ikos.uio.no</a>><br>Subject: Announcing Arabic Etymological Dictionary Project<br><br>Dear all<br><br>I should perhaps not conceal from you that I have already begun work on<br>"the" etymological dictionary everybody is looking for. Since this is a<br>vast project, I am still hesiting to call what I have been able to do so<br>far a real beginning. But there is a basic concept, a preliminary internet<br>design which I am experimenting with, an open structure that envisages and<br>allows a number of additional features/aspects/jobs, there is a huge<br>amount of relevant material that I have collected, and there are the germs<br>of some model entries which will be needed when it comes to trying to<br>raise monies for each single operation that will add to the dictionary.<br><br>As a working title, I called the project "An Etymological Dictionary of<br>Arabic Language and Culture" (EDALC) or "An Etymologico-Conceptual<br>Dictionary..."<br><br><a href="http://www.hf.uio.no/ikos/english/research/projects/etymological_dictionary_arabic/index.html">http://www.hf.uio.no/ikos/english/research/projects/etymological_dictionary_arabic/index.html</a><br><br>since it comprises both a strictly etymological component and another one<br>dealing with semantic history and the history of key concepts. There is<br>already a lot of highly valuable material around, but it is scattered here<br>and there, and one of the major tasks of the EDALC project is to<br>systematically make this material available as dictionary lemmata in a<br>pre-designed format (accessible online).<br>The other big task is to (choose and) digitalize key texts of the Arabic<br>turaath as well as the nahDa and our own days, to raise monies for this,<br>to employ people and to supervise their work. It's an enormous task, of<br>course, but I think we have to begin SOMEwhere, and after that the project<br>will run more or less by itself because of its open structure -- a kind of<br>Wikipedia to which the global community of scholars of Arabic can<br>contribute (controlled by an editorial board / a committee of peer<br>reviewers).<br><br>I will be happy to receive support for this project, however critical it<br>may be, and welcome everybody who is seriously interested in forming a<br>core group in order to advance the project to the next level(s):<br>applications for funding, discussing components and design, etc.<br><br>However is interested, please contact me!<br>Stephan Guth, Oslo<br><br><div>--------------------------------------------------------------------------<br>End of Arabic-L: 17 Jan 2011</div></body></html>