[Lexicog] introduction and too many issues

[yahganlang]

> Hi. I'm Jess Tauber- many of you may know me from my forays into
> sound symbolism.
>
> For the past few years I've been active in collecting and re-editing
> materials relating to the Yahgan language (also variously spelled
> Yagan, Yaghan, Jagan, Iakan, etc.) of Tierra del Fuego, which is at
> face a genetic isolate, and has only one speaker left (though there
> are tantalizing reports now of a second).
>
> The dictionary of the language, compiled in the late 19th century by
> the Rev. Thomas Bridges, has been a problem child, to say the least.
> A final version, completed in the mid 1880's, contained around 32000
> headwords, but has since been lost (though I hope somebody has it in
> their collection somewhere). An earlier draft, of @23000 headwords,
> was edited and published in Austria in 1933.
>
> The editors made quite a mess of the resulting document. Due to fund
> limitations during the Depression, they decided to compact the
> dictionary by massive use of abbreviations, consolidation of separate
> definitions, and use of the word "ditto". They give a garbled
> description of the proper "unzipping" process in the introduction,
> which even if followed perfectly makes for very tedious utilization
> of this resource.
>
> However, massive numbers of printer errors make the reconstitutional
> formula unreliable, as I found out again and again. Luckily the heirs
> of the Rev. Bridges have been very kind in sending me a xerographic
> copy of the original manuscript set (though the last section is
> missing, having been lost by the editors during WWII- this section
> will always have question marks attached to it).
>
> The handwriting of the ms is very often quite hard to read, due to
> Bridges' own paper-saving habit of cramming new heads and definitions
> between old (which I'm sure was rectified in the final version, but
> what can one do?). I've often needed my reconstituted version of the
> published version to figure out what Bridges said in the ms. The ms.,
> on the other hand, shows all the errors of the published 1933 volume.
> Some are just laughable, others make me want to cry.
>
> Both Bridges and the editors used their own idiosyncratic spelling
> systems (though the Anthropos system of the latter was pretty well
> known early in the last century). Converting all this to modern
> phonemic or phonetic rendering is relatively straightforward. And
> every other worker has had his or her own particular system that
> needs reworking as well. The new standard spelling conventions for
> the language fail to capture the detail of those from the 19th C.,
> and add phonemicizations where they may or may not necessarily be
> justified. The issue here is whether to convert to the new standard
> or to argue for a newer one based on the historical facts of the
> language.
>
> The alphabetical order of the dictionary (which was preserved in the
> published version) is also unusual, based on the order of the Ellis
> phonetic script which Bridges later modified for Yahgan- should this
> be left as is, or redone? The order puts all the vowel-initial forms
> first before those with initial consonants, and there is a kind of
> psychological unity in this mode of presentation.
>
> I've spent a great deal of time analyzing headwords into their
> respective morphemes, and am satisfied I've pretty much got them all
> correct. Should the heads be presented as unanalyzed strings, or with
> hyphens between morphemes? If the latter, then this affects the
> choice of a phonemic versus a phonetic spelling.
>
> Most of the 23000 headwords are in fact derivations. Bridges claimed
> he only includes forms when the semantics are not predictable from
> the parts, but this is just not true, for most of them. Should
> derivations with predictable meanings be left out? Or should they be
> subsumed under the basic root head? Which brings up another related
> issue. I've had a strong desire to organize the entire reworked
> dictionary by roots and affixes- which is great for linguists, but
> maybe not so good for any future speakers, if the language can be
> saved.
>
> One possible solution is what Anthony Mattina did for his Colville-
> Okanagan dictionary. He has an ocean of alphabetically ordered
> headwords (most derived) with islands, also alphabetically ordered,
> organized by root, with derivational subheadings, and many textual
> examples as well. Some might find this mode of organization somewhat
> cluttered, but at least you can find things very quickly.
>
> Finally, what about organizing by semantic area, as I've seen done
> for "classified word lists" for some Salish languages? For a smaller
> vocabulary summary, would this be a good presentational mode,
> especially for teaching purposes? Some of the dictionaries I've seen
> include such a summary as an appendix.
>
> All of the basic work on this lexicon is now nearly done- and soon
> there will be a web site at Dartmouth for the language. I'd like
> there to be an interactive dictionary program, and this is one of the
> things I'd like to discuss with folks. I did attend the EMELD
> conference in Michigan this past summer, to get an idea of "best
> practice" at all levels of collection to presentation and archiving
> of materials.
>
> Anyway, that pretty well does it as a longish intro - comments of
> course welcome.
>
>
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