Azkue's dictionary

ECOLING at aol.com ECOLING at aol.com
Wed Oct 6 17:51:32 UTC 1999


Thanks to Larry Trask for the very informative review
of two Basque dictionaries.  I am printing a copy to keep on
permanent file.

I would only have one caveat, which is that the paragraph
quoted below is listed as a "major drawback" of Azkue's dictionary.
Many dictionary users who are interested in the vocabulary of
the language might consider it an advantage,
that one can find a word under whatever dialect variant
the dictionary maker had evidence for.

(The lack of cross-references to eymologically related items
is a drawback for anyone interested in etymologies, it is true.
Perhaps a list of cross-references and
dates of attestation could be prepared by someone
as a supplement to Azkue's dictionary,
since it is in Spanish and French and otherwise provides
the best information on dialectal provenience?)

Rather this quoted paragraph should be part of indications
on how one uses Azkue's dictionary,
not under a list of supposed drawbacks of Azkue's dictionary.

Lloyd Anderson

>Third, when -- as so often -- a word exists in several regional
>variants, Azkue enters each variant separately in its own alphabetical
>place, and he hardly ever provides cross-references.  Consequently, any
>attempt at using his dictionary without heavy editing will lead to
>multiple entries for single words.  This is potentially a serious
>problem: for example, the Basque word for `strawberry' exhibits at least
>twenty regional variants.  This is admittedly an exceptional case, but
>very many words exhibit two to six regional variant forms, and accepting
>Azkue's headwords without suitable editing will produce badly skewed
>results.

Of course one would edit these, and any linguist would recognize
many or most etymologically related words with the same meanings.
On the whole, it seems from Larry Trask's review of it that Jon Patrick is
on very solid ground in using Azkue's dictionary as a basis for
analytical studies.



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