[Lexicog] Using older dictionaries

[Wayne Leman]

  --- In lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com, billposer at ... wrote:

  > A problem with working from older dictionaries that I am surprised
  > that no one has mentioned is that if one follows the order of entries
  > in the older dictionary, from a topical point of view you will be
  > skipping around all over the place (unless its a topical dictionary).


  Michael Everson responded:

  Aren't most dictionaries organized in alphabetical order?


  Probably most (but not all) dictionaries are organized in alphabetical order. I have published both topical (by semantic domains) and alphabetical order dictionaries.

  There is a discovery procedure issue with working with alphabetical dictionaries which someone else here has already mentioned. It is that while it may be easier to locate a form in a dictionary by its alphabetical entry, human brains categorize lexical data by semantic domains, semantic associations, and relationships. None of these are related to alphabetic order. At a minimum, lexical fieldwork needs to be done by semantic domains, as with Ron Moe's system (he's a subscriber here). Then computer software can put the headwords in alphabetical order. But semantic categories still need to be indicated for each entry, so that semantic domain lists can be generated from the lexical database.

  Michael, I think you and I communicated some many years ago over Cheyenne orthography and character sets. Nice to see your name again.

  Wayne
  -----
  Wayne Leman
  Ninilchik Russian:
  http://ninilchik.noadsfree.com

  I would have imagined that most speakers of Carrier had encountered English or French dictionaries and would have some sort of expectation of alphabetical order.

  This is of some interest to me in terms of character encoding. Currently I am working on some West African syllabaries, none of which have much to offer in terms of rational sorting order. Vai is a bit of an exception, because it has a certain order and indeed runs of similar glyphs within the ordering which would help users to find things. (Remembering alphabetical order is easy with 30 characters; syllabaries are much bigger. 

  But perhaps this isn't on topic any longer.

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