[Lexicog] Re: Etymological dictionaries

[Ron Moe]

I've been using Shoebox to work on a dictionary of Koine Greek. It isn't
multilingual, but I've had to set up multiple levels for etymological
information. I've also managed multilingual wordlists in Shoebox. So it can
handle both types of parameters. Since Shoebox permits the user to set up
his own fields, you aren't limited by an inflexible code. So you could set
up a record structure such as:

\key Key field for organizing the database, e.g. a proto-Mayan form or a
reference number
\pm Proto-Mayan reconstructed form
\pp Proto-Mayan part of speech
\pd Proto-Mayan definition

\lx1 current lexical item of language 1
\ps1 part of speech
\de1 definition
\ra1 reconstructed form at level 'a'
\rb1 reconstructed form at level 'b'
etc.

\lx2 current lexical item of language 2
\ps2 part of speech
\de2 definition
\ra2 reconstructed form at level 'a'
\rb2 reconstructed form at level 'b'
etc.

\lx3 current lexical item of language 3
\ps3 part of speech
etc.

\lg4 Language 4

As long as each field has a unique code, you can use all of Shoebox's power
to display, sort, and filter. I've used such databases to do a lot of
morphological and historical anaylsis. Shoebox wasn't designed for this
purpose, so it won't do everything you might want. For instance (with the
database structure above) it won't line up cognate forms in a column.
However it would be easy to manipulate the database so it would.

Ron Moe
  -----Original Message-----
  From: David Frank [mailto:david_frank at sil.org]
  Sent: Monday, March 29, 2004 8:43 AM
  To: lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com
  Subject: [Lexicog] Re: Etymological dictionaries


  Andy --

  Having just one level of depth for an etymology shouldn't be a problem,
e.g. "from Proto-Mayan lek" or "from Spanish retrato". Having multiple
levels of depth (e.g. X < Y< Z) is where it starts to get more complicated,
and especially if you don't want to have to specify in advance how many
levels you might need. Work-arounds are always possible, but I don't know of
any dictionary software that is especially designed to work with complex
etymologies.

  In our dictionary of St. Lucian Creole we did include etymologies, but we
kept them very simple because of the complication in getting the dictionary
software to deal with multiple levels of etymological depth.

  -- David Frank

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