[Lexicog] Cheyenne dictionary and blog

[Ron Moe]

There are two options for improving the vernacular-finder list version of a
“bilingual” dictionary. One is to develop two dictionary projects in either
Toolbox or FieldWorks. The big limitation to this approach is that it is
difficult to link the two in any meaningful way. For instance if you wanted
to ensure that each word referenced in one side existed in the other, there
would be no way to automatically do so. It would be nice if we had a
software package designed for a fully bilingual L1-L2 L2-L1 dictionary.

 

The other option is already available in both Toolbox and FieldWorks, but
FieldWorks is developing the system a bit better. This is to produce a
finder list that has reversal entries that are more than a single word. For
instance if your reversal entries consisted of:

 

\lx hi

\re come

(etc)

 

… you would get the following:

 

come  hi

come  u

come  gli

come  ku

come  hiyu

 

In Toolbox you can give a fuller reversal entry:

 

\lx hi

\re come (to have come here)

(etc)

 

…which would produce the following:

 

come (to have come here)  hi

come (to be coming here)  u

come (to have come back here)  gli

come (to be coming back here)  ku

come (to start coming)  hiyu

 

In FieldWorks they are developing (or possibly already have) a hierarchical
system that enables you to nest reversal entries under a headword. It also
enables you to add a POS for the English word. I don’t know exactly what it
will look like, but I believe it will be something like the following:

 

come vi.

   to have come here  hi

   to be coming here  u

   to have come back here  gli

   to be coming back here  ku

   to start coming  hiyu

 

This still isn’t a L2-L1 dictionary, but it is better than the first option
above.

 

Ron Moe

 

 

   _____  

From: lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com
[mailto:lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Jan F. Ullrich
Sent: Wednesday, September 06, 2006 2:17 PM
To: lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [Lexicog] Cheyenne dictionary and blog

 

 

 

 

 

Dear Mike Cahill

 

> The other major thing I wanted to mention is the output. 

> It's possible to do a reverse gloss, an index. A lot
> of dictionaries I've seen have the format Boko-English, where as you say,
> the Boko is the head word, with explication in English. But there's also a

> "finder index", giving an English word (gloss) and then a pointer to the

> fuller Boko entry. That's what's possible in the current FieldWorks.

 

I haven't looked at FieldWorks yet but from Clair's review and your
explanation above it seems that the "finder index" isn't an improvement of
the Toolbox feature.

Clair is right that endangered languages need dictionaries that have both
sections, that is Language-English and English-Language. And the English
section should be more than just a finder index. The experience shows that
many native people who want to re-learn their ancestral language don't take
the pains in referring to the front section. Instead they simply use the
word they find in the finder index in whichever way they feel it is
appropriate (i.e. without studying the usage rules).

 

Moreover, as you know, it is very frequently the case that for a single
English word there are multiple lexemes used in the other language, often
with subtle meaning differences. In Lakota there are dozens of words for
'come', 'go', 'bring', 'take'. Listing these in a finder index just makes
the student overwhelmed and does not encourage him/her to refer to the ten
or fifteen listed lexemes in the front section where meaning and usage are
explained in detail. 

 

Most of the modern languages have student dictionaries with both sections
being full-fledged dictionaries of their own, with detailed information on
meaning and usage. This is probably more than most endangered languages can
hope for, but it would be very helpful if we could at least provide a finder
index with a comment for each word, for instance:

 

come:  -- vi. hi (to have come here), u (to be coming here), gli (to have
come back here), ku (to be coming back here); hiyu (to start coming)

          -- vcol. ahi (they all have come here), au (they all are coming
here), agli (they all have come back here), aku (they all are coming back
here); ahiyu (they all start  coming)

 

In our current work on the Lakota language dictionary we are hoping to
provide such Lakota section, which would be fuller then just a finder index.
But Toolbox does not help to automate the process (at least partly) or
provide a database structure that would support this type of output.

 

I hope this helps to clarify the needs of endangered languages. Many thanks
to SIL team for the lexicography tools.

 

 

Jan

 

Jan Ullrich

Lakota Language Consortium

HYPERLINK "http://www.lakhota.org/"www.lakhota.-org

 

 

 

 


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