[Lexicog] Field research based dictionaries

[Crockett]

Masha,

As for question 1, I would look at Toolbox or Shoebox software at:

http://www.sil.org/computing/catalog/show_software_catalog.asp?by=all
<http://www.sil.org/computing/catalog/show_software_catalog.asp?by=all&n
ame> &name=

Those programs do take quite a bit of knowledge about computers, but
they are good programs for making dictionaries.

I think it might help to answer questions 2 and 3 if you go to:

http://www.sil.org/computing/shoebox/index.html

and then click on "Making Dictionaries" toward the bottom of the page.
You should be able to save that file to your computer for reference. It
will take you awhile to read through it.

As for question 4, you would need to study some books on that. There are
a couple that might interest you at:

http://www.ethnologue.com/show_catalog.asp?by=cat
<http://www.ethnologue.com/show_catalog.asp?by=cat&name=Textbooks>
&name=Textbooks

Maybe you can find them in your linguistics library and wouldn't need to
buy them. If studies have already been done (regarding question 4), then
you of course should look at those or even use their results depending
upon the quality and nature of the work.

Good luck,
Crockett


-----Original Message-----
From: Masha Brykina [mailto:marik_bryk at yahoo.com]
Sent: Thursday, April 01, 2004 8:03 PM
To: lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Lexicog] Field research based dictionaries

Hello all,
I am a new member of this group and would like to ask for help. I am
involved in a project aimed to make a Besermyan-Russian dictionary
(Besermyan is considered to be one of dialects of Udmurt - a Finno-Ugric
language). This dictionary will be based on field research. Until now
we've collected over 3000 basic lexemes with some examples, which we
have organized in a database made in Microsoft Access. During our work
we were confronted with certain problems and would like to learn more
about these points (perhaps you could provide some references):
1)      Whether anyone has experience using MS Access for such goals.
2)      What are the basic principles of separating meanings of the word
3)      How one should deal with loan words (there are lots of words
from Russian more or less phonetically assimilated (for example, the
names of the months - russian ones are wide-spread and the original ones
are remembered only by several aged speakers)).
4)      Whether there are any works on principles of making alphabets.
For example, we have problems with shwa-sound. There are several
variants of this sound, which don't seem to be phonological, but which
are easily distinguished by the native speakers. And since Besermyan
differs phonetically from Udmurt and therefore can be seen as having no
writing system, one more problem arises - how to choose lexical entry in
case there are several phonetic variants for one lexeme.

We would be very grateful for any information concerning these problems.

Masha.

Maria Brykina
Student
Department of Linguistics
Moscow State University
mailto:marik_bryk at yahoo.com
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