[Lexicog] online publishing

Fri Apr 22 20:40:44 UTC 2011

We can do that on SIL's Language and Culture Data and Description e-series. The closest thing to a dictionary we have up now is Ken Olson's 2000-word Mono list, with recordings of all words. Particularly for dictionaries that are not going to be updated often, perhaps not at all, that's an option. If there's a desire to have an interactive dictionary website, we aren't equipped for that - yet. I'd be happy to correspond with interested parties.

Mike Cahill

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Dr. Michael Cahill

Editor-in-Chief of Content Services, SIL International 

7500 W. Camp Wisdom Rd.

Dallas, TX 75236

USA

email: mike_cahill at sil.org

phone: 972-708-7632

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From: lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com [mailto:lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Ronald Moe
Sent: Friday, April 22, 2011 2:08 PM
To: lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [Lexicog] online publishing

[Note: Thanks for the contributions to this discussion from several of you. This is a followup posting in which I would like to present a few general observations about online publishing. I also posted what follows on the FLEx users list. My apologies to those of you on both lists. I am compiling a list of publication options which I will post in a later email. RM]

All Martin Diprose wants is a website where he can (at least temporarily) publish his dictionaries. Apparently SIL is working on a place within the SIL website where he can publish them, but it may take some time before it is ready. Martin is going to run the dictionaries through Lexique Pro. The question then is, where does he post the files? We've got Toolbox and MDF and Lexique Pro. We've got FLEx and WeSay and Pathways. We can produce these beautiful dictionaries. But we have no easy way to publish them.

Currently if you want to publish a dictionary, it appears that you have two choices. You either have to find an existing website (e.g. a university website) that will permit you to publish your dictionary under their auspices, or you have to buy a website and get someone to develop it for you. It seems to me that the smartest and most efficient thing to do is for the linguistic (or lexicographic) world to pool their resources and just develop one big site.

So I think the real need is for a website where people can post dictionaries (and other linguistic descriptions) for the world to see. Such a website could simply be a means of publishing electronically. But it could also be a place for people to post dictionaries that are "in process". We need to create a climate in which dictionaries are seen as "incremental approximations" of an exhaustive unabridged dictionary. No dictionary is complete or perfect. So those of us who are building dictionaries, especially first time dictionaries, of minority languages ought to feel OK about posting an imperfect dictionary. As it is, people are afraid that their scholarly reputations will be hurt if they post something that isn't perfect. But dictionaries are such massive undertakings that we need to view them differently.

Once a dictionary is posted, others can benefit from our work and/or contribute to it. So I would like a website where every language has a page devoted just to it. Anyone working on that language can post a dictionary, word list, grammar, text, or article about it. Ideally someone could run a query and search all the dictionaries on the website. Ideally other linguists and especially speakers of the language could contribute to the dictionary in a wiki environment. But at least we need a place to post dictionaries and an easy way to upload our databases. Minimally the public should be able to search it for a language and see what is there. The website should be free. A person who wants to post a dictionary should not have to be a programmer or have to set up the webpage. It should already be set up with easy to follow instructions on how to post something.

Ron Moe

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From: lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com [mailto:lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Ronald Moe
Sent: Wednesday, April 20, 2011 3:04 PM
To: lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Lexicog] online publishing

Does anyone know of a website where a dictionary can be published? A
colleague of mine, Martin Diprose, has been working on dictionaries for four
Ugandan languages. He needs to find a place to publish them.
Thanks,
Ron Moe

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