[Lexicog] Re: Etymological dictionaries

[David Frank]

Andy --

Having just one level of depth for an etymology shouldn't be a problem, e.g. "from Proto-Mayan lek" or "from Spanish retrato". Having multiple levels of depth (e.g. X < Y< Z) is where it starts to get more complicated, and especially if you don't want to have to specify in advance how many levels you might need. Work-arounds are always possible, but I don't know of any dictionary software that is especially designed to work with complex etymologies.

In our dictionary of St. Lucian Creole we did include etymologies, but we kept them very simple because of the complication in getting the dictionary software to deal with multiple levels of etymological depth.

-- David Frank
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