[Lexicog] Incorporating an existing English/Vernacular word list/dictionary into a dictionary project....

Tue Mar 25 00:18:17 UTC 2008

Heather Souter wrote:

“Soon  I will become part of a team that will be working to create the first
dictionary of our language that focuses on the vernacular.”

Hi Heather,

It would be a very simple matter to incorporate the existing
English-vernacular word list into a monolingual or bilingual
vernacular-English dictionary. There are tools available that can reverse a
dictionary. For instance we could take the following input:

\lx doctor

\de tabibu; mganga; daktari

and transform it into:

\lx tabibu

\de doctor

\lx mganga

\de doctor

\lx daktari

\de doctor

This can be done in a couple of minutes, no matter how large your dictionary
is.

There are also tools available that can help you update an orthography or
transliterate one script into another (e.g. orthography into IPA). The
length of time it would take would depend on how much you need to interact
with the changes. If the changes are regular, we could set up a table of
correspondences. The table could then be applied to your database in a
matter of minutes. However if your orthography does not accurately reflect
the phonology of the language, then you will need a tool that allows you to
interact with a Find/Replace function. The FieldWorks program has a tool
specifically designed for such a task. FieldWorks is available free of
charge from the SIL website. FieldWorks also includes a tool for collecting
and typing words using the DDP word collection method. I would highly
recommend that you use FieldWorks, since it has the most powerful tools that
I am aware of for rapidly developing a dictionary database.

Since time is of the essence in your situation, DDP is the most efficient
method of collecting lots of words in a short time. Many teams are
collecting 10,000 to 20,000 words in a few weeks. The number of words
collected depends on a number of factors, such as the number of mother
tongue speakers available to work on the project, how vigorous is language
use, etc. If you only have a few speakers of the language left, your results
might be far less, but will still be much better than other methods. You
should also collect as many texts as possible, since this will supplement
the DDP method and provide solid evidence for semantic research.

If you have other questions, post them to this discussion group and one of
us will try to help you.

Ron Moe

   _____  

From: lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com
[mailto:lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Heather Souter
Sent: Monday, March 24, 2008 6:48 PM
To: lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Lexicog] Incorporating an existing English/Vernacular word
list/dictionary into a dictionary project....

Hello!  I am a community linguist (both some formal and informal training at
the master's level) and a member of community with a highly endangered
language.  I have been involved in some basic phonological analysis and also
revitalization efforts (creation of basic pedagogical materials).  Soon  I
will become part of a team that will be working to create the first
dictionary of our language that focuses on the vernacular.  In other words,
it will not be a translation of an English dictionary.   It is exciting.
However, not being trained in lexicography, I am finding the learning curve
quite steep!   

Here, I have a question.  An English-vernacular word list/dictionary of our
language exists.  The headwords are English and there are one, two or three
possible translations given in our language as well as some example
sentences.  There is no grammatical information included at all.  (Still, it
is a wonderful resource!)  I would like to know how this could be included
in the dictionary project that will be starting shortly.  To complicate
matters, the orthography is pretty good but not linguistically adequate
(being based on English spellings!).  We likely will be using a different
orthography (as well as IPA for research purposes).   The creation of a
digital version of the existing word list/dictionary is possible (once
permission is secured).

As the project is somewhat politically charged at present, I would prefer
not divulging the name of our language.  I trust that you all understand how
touchy projects like this can be and will not press me to on this matter.
I thank you for you understand..-..

H.S.

PS:  I have taken a look at the DDP developed by Ron Moe and  have asked the
project leader to consider this approach.  I think it could work very well
for us as time is of the essence!  Our Elders are passing way every day....

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