[Lexicog] Lacunae-what should then go in the dictionary?

[Conor McDonough Quinn]

Dia dhuit, a chara!

> The problem that I have encountered is that the natives came up with lots of words for plants and animals (and not only) that they don't know what it is in French. So, I ended up with a long, long lists of "sort of...(plant, animal etc.)". Now that is more or less OK for now, for this little dictionary. But what about a bigger, broader dictionary? There might be plants or animals that have not even been discovered yet by "westerners" or botanists or zoologists!?
One way to deal with this is just to get people to describe everything
they know about that plant/animal/other, in the language.  This makes for
a good definition, tends to elicit other vocabulary you might never
have run into, collects valuable (and often lexicographically crucial)
cultural knowledge, and greatly facilitates identifying that
plant/animal/other for specialists, both in/of the Linnaean taxonomic
tradition and in/of the indigenous ones.

Sla/n,
do chara



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