[Lexicog] A method for gathering names of flora

Thu Apr 29 11:36:09 UTC 2004

Thank you very much Crockett. Your suggestion is very helpful. Too bad I won't be too much longer here to do all this research for myself. I'm descovering more and more that puting up a dictionary is quite and exciting and challanging job. I'm enjoying it.

Cami.

Crockett <asigwan at yahoo.com> wrote:

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I would suggest you begin a kind of picture book of as many plants, flowers and trees that you can gather information on from those areas. I have mine on computer in digital form. There should be books or other resources about what flora, in general, is found in the Congo or other nearby or similar areas. It wouldn´t have to be the exact area you are targeting. You can find a good picture of just about any plant or tree on the Internet now. Find the scientific name of flora that occurs in your area, look them up on the internet, and then make a good printout of  them (or store them on your computer). You can use these pictures to help people identify what the name of that plant is. These could be speakers of the language who visit you from those areas or who are visited in those areas. I imagine you could also use them as part of a DDP workshop.

You´d still have to do good research to make sure you get the right names. People will give you the wrong names for plants. I have found that when several people agree on the name of a plant, then usually you can be pretty sure it is correct (not always, though). I never take one or two people’s opinions of what a plant is called. I have over 400 plant names and 300 pictures in my database. I’d say I’m pretty sure about the names of 200 of them. Each time I have an opportunity to do more research, either on visits to those areas, or if someone visits me, then I am able to add to and/or clarify these names. I just took a trip to a new area a few days ago and got thirty new names and clarified several I had had doubts about. I also have doubts about one name I was pretty sure about before. That’s the way it goes in my research.

You may only end up knowing the names for that general kind of plant and not the exact name for each species. That would still be better than what it seems you have now.

Hope that helps,

Crockett

-----Original Message-----
From: Cami Borza [mailto:camiborza at yahoo.com]
Sent: Monday, April 26, 2004 9:25 AM
To: lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [Lexicog] Lacunae-what should then go in the dictionary?

Chaz,

When you mentioned there is no difference between tree and wood, I remembered a problem that I have on what to enter in a dictionary and I would like to ask you all your opinions on this. Let me explain:

I'm working with 8 Congolese languages and the lexicography work was very slow so far, collecting even as little as 2000 words in 20 years. Now we have decided that I would help all the teams put together a very small, basic dictionary (without definitions or much explanation, basically the word and it's equivalent in French). To do this we are using Ron Moe's DDP.

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!?

But even if we don't go that far, what would you guys do with this kind of words that the natives do not know what it is in the national language or language of broader circulation? For example: one of our project gave me about 10 different words for different kinds of "manioc" (a plant they eat in Congo). Their national language is French and I'm sure they have no idea what those words would be in French. So, what is a lexicographer supposed to do in this case?

Thanks for the input,

Cami Borza

SIL-ECG

Chaz and Helga Mortensen <chaz_mortensen at sil.org> wrote:

Wayne wrote:

> In your research, what (apparent) lexical lacunae have you encountered,
> where there is lack of lexicalization for concepts which seem to be part
of
> the culture of the language speakers?

It's not a lack of lexicalization, but it has always struck me as odd that
the Emberas, who live in the jungle, don't differentiate between "tree" and
"wood".

-Chaz

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