[Lexicog] Using old dictionaries

[Susan Gehr]

I had a very good experience incorporating an already published dictionary
as the basis for the new edition with the Karuk Dictionary
http://ncidc.org/gift/detail.cfm?id=2339.   Of course I not only had the
permission of the original author, Bill Bright, he actively worked with me
on the new edition.  The original work was public domain, so it was a
courtesy to seek his permission, which he freely gave.  Those circumstances
made the copyright issue fairly straightforward.

I don¹t know if this is an ideal way to make a new dictionary, but it worked
very well for our situation.  We did find that in the fifty years that had
passed between his original work and the 2005 dictionary, that there were
words that had become obsolete and some new words, too. Because he was
involved with the original work, we could follow up on questions, doubts or
issues with previous entries.  After we published in 2005, we did form a
dictionary advisory committee of language speakers who reviewed sections of
the dictionary and provided feedback, corrections and missing words. Looking
back, we might have formed the advisory committee sooner, but we did present
drafts of the dictionary at language committee meetings and at community
language classes.

We might not have such an extensive dictionary if we¹d decided to start from
scratch. Now we have something that is the basis for conversation for our
fluent elders and fluent listeners of the language.

Hope that helps,
Susan Gehr

On 12/18/09 3:34 AM, "Richard Gravina" <Richard-Sue_Gravina at sil.org> wrote:

>  
>  
>  
>    
> 
> Thanks to everyone for their contributions.
>  
> Does anyone have positive experiences on how they built on the work of
> previous researchers? Any pitfalls to avoid?
>  
> As with other areas of linguistics, it is good to benefit from earlier work,
> though the earlier work can be expected to be flawed.
>  
> The context is working with minority languages.
>  
> Richard Gravina
>  
>    
> 
> 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lexicography/attachments/20091218/f3fca520/attachment.htm>