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<DIV><SPAN class=348491717-17102005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2>Indicating etymology is a complicated task. For some languages there is
very little information available and the task is relatively straightforward.
Depending on your situation, the following may apply:</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=348491717-17102005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=348491717-17102005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>1. If
the language is an isolate, there may be no possibility of indicating the
history of an inherited word. (A good historical linguist may be able to deduce
some historical changes from internal evidence, but this information is most
likely systematic and is better included in a grammar.)</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=348491717-17102005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=348491717-17102005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>2. If
there is a history of writing, you may be able to refer to an archaic literary
form. For instance in English we have literature from Middle English and Old
English and can cite forms from both periods.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=348491717-17102005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>sun n.
... [Middle English sonne, sunne, Old English sunne]</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=348491717-17102005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=348491717-17102005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>3. If
the language belongs to a language family and there is a historical
reconstruction of the family, you can refer to a reconstructed form. You should
cite the published source of reconstructed forms in your introduction. I don't
know for sure, but I believe most, if not all, language families have been
reconstructed.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=348491717-17102005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>
<DIV><SPAN class=348491717-17102005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>sun n.
... [Middle English sonne, sunne, Old English sunne, PIE
sawel]</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=348491717-17102005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV></FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=348491717-17102005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>4. If
there are reconstructions for different historical levels, you can cite
different historical forms. For instance in English we can often cite a
proto-Germanic form and a proto-Indo-European form.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=348491717-17102005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>
<DIV><SPAN class=348491717-17102005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>sun n.
... [Middle English sonne, sunne, Old English sunne, Germanic, sunnon, PIE
sawel]</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV></FONT></SPAN><SPAN class=348491717-17102005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=348491717-17102005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>5. If
a word is borrowed, you can cite the source language, the form in the source
language, and if possible the approximate time when the word was borrowed. This
can get very complicated and requires a good understanding of the history of
both languages.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=348491717-17102005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>sugar
n. ... [Middle English suker, sugre, from Old French sukere, zuchre, from
Old Italian zucchero, from Medieval Latin zuccarum, succarum, from Arabic
sukkar, from Persian shakar, from Prakrit sakkara, from Sanskrit sarkara,
pebble, gravel, sugar.]</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=348491717-17102005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=348491717-17102005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>6.
Since the etymology of a word is its history, you have to decide how much of a
word's history you want to include. You may choose to merely indicate the proto
form of a word or include intermediate forms.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=348491717-17102005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>moon
n. ... [PIE me-]</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=348491717-17102005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2>(or)</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=348491717-17102005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>
<DIV><SPAN class=348491717-17102005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>moon
n. ... [Middle English moone, mon, Old English mona, Germanic maenon, extended
and suffixed form men-en- 'moon, month (an ancient and universal measure of
time)' of PIE me- 'to measure'.]</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=348491717-17102005></SPAN> </DIV></FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=348491717-17102005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2>Likewise, you may choose to merely indicate the source language of a
borrowed word or its entire history.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=348491717-17102005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>helium
n. ... [from New Latin]</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=348491717-17102005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2>(or)</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=348491717-17102005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>helium
n. ... [New Latin, from Greek helios, the sun (the element was first discovered
in an examination of the solar spectrum), suffixed form sawel-yo- of
PIE sawel.]</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=348491717-17102005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=348491717-17102005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>Most
dictionary software is not designed to handle all this complexity. For instance
MDF has the following fields:</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=348491717-17102005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=348491717-17102005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>\et
etymology (proto form)</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=348491717-17102005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>\eg
etymology gloss (gloss of the proto form)</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=348491717-17102005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>\ec
etymology comment (a non-printing field)</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=348491717-17102005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>\es
etymology source (bibliographical reference)</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=348491717-17102005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>\bw
borrowed word/loan (used for denoting the source language of a borrowed
word)</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=348491717-17102005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=348491717-17102005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>This
is entirely insufficient to handle an extended discussion of the history of a
word. However it is sufficient if you have very limited information or choose to
limit the amount of etymological information included in your
dictionary.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=348491717-17102005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=348491717-17102005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>If you
want to include extended information, it is helpful to separate the information
into a set of fields. Since historical levels are ordered, you can set up a
series of fields to systematically handle each level:</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=348491717-17102005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=348491717-17102005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>\eme
etymology-Middle English</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=348491717-17102005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>\eoe
etymology-Old English</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=348491717-17102005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>\ege
etymology-Germanic</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=348491717-17102005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>\epf
etymology-proto form</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=348491717-17102005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>\epg
etymology-proto gloss</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=348491717-17102005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=348491717-17102005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2>However it is likely that the complexity of providing glosses
and explanatory comments will overwhelm any attempt at making the etymology
section systematic. It is better to merely have a single etymology field in
which you present the etymology in sentence format. If you want to separate out
the various forms, it is better to have a user-defined, non-printing field for
each kind of information that you want to access:</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=348491717-17102005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=348491717-17102005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>\lx
<SPAN class=348491717-17102005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2>moon</FONT></SPAN></FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=348491717-17102005><SPAN class=348491717-17102005><FONT
face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>\et <SPAN class=348491717-17102005><FONT
face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>Middle English moone, mon, Old English mona,
Germanic maenon, extended and suffixed form men-en- 'moon, month (an ancient and
universal measure of time)' of PIE me- 'to
measure'.</FONT></SPAN></FONT></SPAN></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=348491717-17102005><SPAN class=348491717-17102005><FONT
face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>
<DIV><SPAN class=348491717-17102005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>\eme
moone, mon</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=348491717-17102005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>\eoe
mona</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=348491717-17102005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>\ege
maenon</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=348491717-17102005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>\epf
me-</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=348491717-17102005>\epg to measure
<DIV><SPAN class=348491717-17102005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=348491717-17102005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>(Data
for examples was taken from the American Heritage
Dictionary.)</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=348491717-17102005></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=348491717-17102005>Ron Moe</SPAN></DIV></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN
class=348491717-17102005></SPAN> </DIV></FONT></SPAN></SPAN><SPAN
class=348491717-17102005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2></FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<DIV class=OutlookMessageHeader dir=ltr align=left><FONT face=Tahoma
size=2>-----Original Message-----<BR><B>From:</B>
lexicographylist@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:lexicographylist@yahoogroups.com]<B>On Behalf Of
</B>arun<BR><B>Sent:</B> Saturday, October 15, 2005 5:37 AM<BR><B>To:</B>
lexicographylist@yahoogroups.com<BR><B>Subject:</B> [Lexicog] Knowledge
Help!!! Database for Dictionary<BR><BR></FONT></DIV>Hi. I am thinking of
creating a free, flexible and friendly software in VB for a dictionary.
Actually it is a dictionary cum word game package.<BR><BR>I have some ideas,
but I need to interact and find out more about how to incorporate a database
for a dictionary. For now, I've created a structure for aword entry refering
the Compact Oxford Dictionary. I plan to include entry for an
etymology.<BR><BR>Is it advisable to construe the etymology as such in
terms <SPAN style="FONT-STYLE: italic">levels? </SPAN>Each level is indicative
of the historical period to which a particular word root belongs to. So if a
root has more origins each of them is placed in a kind of hierarcial sequence;
the recent roots first and the older origins last...<BR><BR>Anyway there are
so many labels like part of speech, regional usage, and abbreviations, etc.
How does one incorporate this into the database?<BR
style="FONT-STYLE: italic"><BR>
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